Robert Wickens rues missed pole position

Mercedes’ Robert Wickens felt his car was good enough for pole position at Oschersleben, but the HWA team was caught out by the weather.

Wickens told the official DTM channel: “we waited for too long to do my hot-lap, then it started raining” after he was unable to improve on his best time of 1m21.185 in the wet Q2 session.

The Nürburgring winner has since revealed he felt his car was capable of pole position.

“It’s altogether a great pity because I think we have a good car, good enough even to progress to Q4 and on to pole position with a little bit of luck.

“It was very difficult to pick the right moment to go out on track with all the rain.

“Unfortunately, things only went well for us in Q1. We waited too long to go out in Q2 [and] it was already raining a bit on the outlap.

“On the first timed lap, the rain was even heavier, and the track was so wet on the second hot lap that a decent time was no longer possible.

“We didn’t expect that I would not go through to Q3.”

Despite his misfortune, Wickens will start tomorrow’s race as the best of the Mercedes drivers in P11.

Team-mate Gary Paffett will line up 12th after taking a five place grid-drop penalty for using the incorrectly allocated tyres in the free practice session.