Ekström takes Mugello pole

Perhaps, Mattias Ekström gave himself the most beautiful present to celebrate his 29th birthday: in qualifying for the sixth season round of the DTM in Mugello in Italy, the Swede claimed his first pole position of the season with his Audi A4 DTM, the ninth of his DTM career.

In summery temperatures of over 30 degrees, he kept cool in the third qualifying heat, pipping his team-mate Martin Tomczyk to pole position in the final second. Tomczyk also had to let Tom Kristensen ahead of him, who outpaced the German on his final attempt as well.

Timo Scheider in fourth and Alexandre Prémat with his year-old car in fifth place completed the dream result for Audi. In sixth place, Bruno Spengler was the fastest driver with an AMG Mercedes C-Class, seventh place was occupied by his team-mate, Jamie Green. For two times’ Formula 1 world champion, Mika Häkkinen, qualifying was already over after one heat. The Finn didn’t do any better than 15th place. Bernd Schneider, points leader and reigning champion, couldn’t be happy with his result either as the German will only be starting from eleventh place for Sunday’s race.