Edo Mortara takes pole in red flagged session
Edoardo Mortara was the fastest man during this afternoon’s qualifying session for Race 1 at the Red Bull Ring for Audi, host of the fifth round of the 2015 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season. The Italian prevailed in a complicated session which had to be stopped with a red flag due to Miguel Molina stopping on track.
At the green light, the first man on track was Christian Vietoris, followed by the men from Audi Sport. The German from Mercedes set the first flying lap, although he was quickly beaten by team-mate Robert Wickens. Audi’s Jamie Green went up to second place, followed by Edoardo Mortara.
Pascal Wehrlein was also competitive in his Mercedes C63 DTM, going fastest, only to be beaten by his team-mate Paul Di Resta a few seconds after. The Gooix Mercedes then went fastest again, with the Scot improving to be second, just 0.006 seconds off his team-mate.
After almost everybody had returned to the pits for fresh tyres, leaving only the men from Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline were on track. Mattias Ekström improved to go into fourth position, but his team-mate Miguel Molina went hard over the kerbs, damaging his RS 5 DTM and stopped on the track. The session was red flagged for five minutes as the marshals recovered the car, but the Spaniard saw the end of his qualifying right then. Molina would be 20th at the end of the session.
The session was restarted with just 8:15 left on the clock. Timo Scheider had trouble as his RS 5 DTM stalled as he left his garage. With the help of his mechanics, the former champion was able to restart the car and get on track for the final part of the session.
In the final minutes, with a lot of traffic and a dirty track, most drivers had difficulties to improve their times.
With only two minutes left on the clock, Edoardo Mortara set a time of 1:24.716, which gave him the pole position. With the chequered flag already out, Jamie Green went second, albeit 0.193 seconds away from his team-mate.
Pascal Wehrlein was third for Mercedes, followed by his team-mate Paul Di Resta. Augusto Farfus was the only BMW in the top 10, qualifying in fifth position after a good final lap. Mercedes’ Christian Vietoris, Robert Wickens and Gary Paffett followed, with Audi’s Mattias Ekström and Mike Rockenfeller completing the top 10.
Local hero Lucas Auer had a difficult session again in his Mercedes C63 DTM, qualifying 24th and last for today’s race.
Race 1 is scheduled for 18:13 CEST (GMT + 2) and will run for 40 minutes plus one lap, with no compulsory pit stop.
