Photo: DTM Media

Jamie Green rockets to Zandvoort Race 2 pole position

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Jamie Green has claimed pole position for the second race of the DTM weekend at Zandvoort, beating Robert Wickens’ Race 1 pole time by almost three-tenths of a second in his Rosberg Audi RS 5, with the two Mercedes of Gary Paffett and Christian Vietoris completing the top three.

The session started awkwardly for Mercedes, with Daniel Juncadella crashing his HWA Mercedes out at the Masterkurve on his first flying lap, causing the session to be red flagged.

When the session resumed, his team-mate Maximilian Götz also went wide and sustained damage and was unable to set a competitive time in the session, while Race 1 pole-sitter Robert Wickens also had an excursion on his first run and sat for the first half of the session in 22nd on the time sheets.

All the key improvements came during the drivers’ second run during the final two minutes of the 20-minute session, with Christian Vietoris’ initial target of 1:31.6 falling by the wayside as Timo Glock in the RMG BMW M4 showed there was easily a lap time of 1:30 available from the track. Glock’s time of 1:30.957 didn’t keep him on top for long however, as Green jumped ahead with a time of 1:30.696, which would not be bettered by anyone else.

Four other drivers would set times in the 1:30s and fall in behind Green, with Gary Paffett the next best-placed in the ART Mercedes C63, just 0.079 behind his countryman, with Christian Vietoris third fastest just under a tenth of a second behind Green.

Edoardo Mortara was fourth for Audi Sport Abt ahead of yesterday’s race winner Robert Wickens’ HWA Mercedes, with Timo Glock the fastest of the BMWs in sixth ahead of stable-mate Marco Wittmann.

Esteban Ocon followed up his best qualifying performance on Saturday with another strong result with eighth in his ART Mercedes, with the Abt Audis of Mattias Ekström and Nico Müller completing the top ten.

René Rast qualified in 22nd position for his DTM debut, a respectable 1.3 seconds from the ultimate pace, and will start ahead of the two beleaguered Mercedes of Maximilian Götz and Daniel Juncadella for today’s race, which gets underway at 13:45 CET.