Photo: DTM Media

Robert Wickens snatches last-minute pole at Lausitzring

Mercedes AMG continued their dominant pace at Lausitzring, with Robert Wickens taking pole position from BMW’s Tom Blomqvist in the last minutes of this morning’s very close qualifying session.

Action intensified with seven minutes to go, with most drivers mounting new tyres for the final pole position shootout. Drivers had to use their first flying lap to bring the tyres up to temperature, with everything to be decided in the final three minutes of the session.

Tom Blomqvist went fastest first with with 1:16.323. Jamie Green completed his last lap just 0.003 seconds over the BMW driver, but Mercedes AMG’s Robert Wickens blasted everybody away with a 1:16.299, taking his first pole position of the season.

Gary Paffett improved in the final lap to be fourth, only 0.069 seconds behind his team-mate, with Maxime Martin being sixth, 0.080 off the pace.

Audi drivers René Rast, Nico Müller and Mattias Ekström were next in positions six, seven and eight, with the Swede just 0.142 seconds behind the pole. BMW’s Augusto Farfus and Marco Wittmann completed the top ten, with the reigning champion 0.280 seconds off Wickens’ time.

Standings leader and yesterday’s winner Lucas Auer could only manage 15th, leading a Mercedes AMG quartet formed by Paul Di Resta, Maro Engel and Edoardo Mortara, closing the classification on a different tyre strategy.

Robert Wickens: “This is all for the team, they are doing a great job. It was a difficult qualy, very stressful, so it’s great to have got the pole in the end. My lap was ok, it wasn’t a miracle lap, scrappy, not smooth, so I’m happy it was good enough.”

The start of Race 2 is scheduled for 15:18 CET.