Mercedes delighted after securing pole in difficult conditions

The difficult conditions and shortened practice time in Lausitzring today didn’t stop Mercedes from continuing to improve in terms of performance and achieve a good overall effort in today’s qualifying, led by Pascal Wehrlein’s first ever pole position in the DTM.

Just one 15-minute free practice session meant that most drivers had almost no time in terms of finding an optimum setup, and changing conditions on track during qualifying caused positions to change continuously.

Pascal Wehrlein was able to make the most of the situation, becoming the youngest ever poleman in the history of DTM. He was happy for the result, but also cautious about what he can achieve tomorrow:

“My first pole position in the DTM, and in such difficult conditions here at the Lausitzring too. I’m absolutely delighted. I’ve been putting in some solid performances recently but I haven’t been reaping the rewards. Today, everything fell into place. I set my lap time in Q3 relatively early, because I felt sure that the tyres would be at their best on the first lap. The track and general conditions today helped us a lot. We saw that already during the test sessions here. Now we need to wait and see how everything pans out tomorrow in the race itself.”

Dani Juncadella (Team Mucke) was over the moon after what he considered to be his strongest performance this season. The Spaniard qualified in fifth position for tomorrow’s grid, and wasn’t shy about targeting the podium: “That was an excellent qualifying from my perspective. I’m very pleased. It was my best qualifying of the season so far, which shows that things are getting better with every race weekend. On the other hand, I made a small mistake on my final lap, which is a pity, as otherwise, I would be a bit further up the grid. Hopefully tomorrow, I can make more progress towards finishing on the podium. I’m really pleased for Pascal and would wish to congratulate him on his maiden pole position.”

Another happy face in the post-qualifying parc fermé was Gary Paffett. The Briton had a solid session, and was upbeat after being able to make it into the Q3: “Qualifying in general was very good. In these damp conditions, the car was working well. In Q2, I was in P5 and did a purple in the first sector, so I was pretty happy with the car. But unfortunately in Q3, I made a couple of small mistakes which meant that I didn’t make the most of the session. But in general, qualifying went well. Getting into Q3 is a big step forward and gives us a decent chance to have a good race.”

Wolfgang Schattling, Head of Motorsport, believed that testing at the Lausitzring allowed them to improve and was happy with the result, but felt cautious about the real possibilities in the race: “We’re obviously delighted that Pascal has now secured his maiden DTM pole. We have no fewer than three cars in the Top Eight, which is a good result for us. After the test sessions here, we had hoped to give a better account of ourselves than in some of the previous races. However, there were highly variable and difficult track conditions in qualifying, which Pascal nonetheless coped with very well. But we won’t know how convincing we will look over the full distance until tomorrow.”

Despite a slow start of the year, Mercedes has managed two victories so far, with Christian Vietoris and Robert Wickens.