Photo: DTM Media

Tom Kristensen takes emphatic pole

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The “King of Oschersleben”, Tom Kristensen, re-affirmed his love for the circuit with a sensational qualifying session. The Dane set the fastest times in all-but-one of the four qualifying rounds, and later explained his success “I am very good because we have a strong car on this track this year”.

Mercedes-Benz had only one driver in the third qualifying round, in the shape of Bruno Spengler. The other seven places were taken up by Audi, as they continued their dominance from the free practice.

The first two rounds of the qualifying has a similar flavour, the older specification cars all went on-track first to assess the conditions for the newer cars, which ran later.

Mattias Ekström set the pace in the first round of qualifying, but from that point onwards he could not match the awesome speed of Kristensen.

The final qualifying round saw Timo Scheider claim second on the grid, with Martin Tomczyk third and Ekström fourth.

With the weight of Mercedes expectation placed firmly on his shoulders, Spengler tried to launch a fight back in the third qualifying session. The Canadian couldn’t match the pace of the Audi drivers, and could only manage 6th spot for tomorrows race. He was clearly unhappy after the session, as he stated “It’s only nice to be the best Mercedes driver when you are on pole”.

The championship leader, Gary Paffett, successfully negotiated the first round, but fell short in the second. He will start the race from 12th, with his target set on limiting the damage to his championship challenge, saying “I hope to have the chance to score some points tomorrow”.

Audi are more than happy with yet another pole position, with Dr Wolfgang Ulrich stating “It’s the seventh pole in row now. That’s a fantastic statistic”. The Audi team are now perfectly placed to claim their 50th win in the DTM.

Sundays race could be made all the more interesting by the rain which has been forecast for the day. Whether the rain arrives or not, will feature highly in all of the teams tactical approach to the race.