Maxime Martin breaks lap record to take pole position at Norisring

BMW driver Maxime Martin set a new qualifying lap record at Norisring to take the pole position for the first race of the weekend, his first of the season and third of his DTM career.

“It’s amazing to take pole position here at the Norisring, where we aren’t super strong,” said Martin. “The car looks fine, it’s going to be a long race, but we think everything is possible. The car is quite good and I think the tyres will have less of an input, so I will do my best to fight for victory.”

Cloudy skies welcomed the DTM teams and drivers for the first qualifying session of the weekend, with light rain at Turn 7 reported five minutes into the session, without it disrupting the session.

BMW’s Timo Glock and Audi’s Mattias Ekström alternated on at the top spot of the classification until, with 11 minutes to go, Mercedes’ Lucas Auer took advantage from a tow from team-mate Gary Paffett to set the fastest time, with Ekström improving to be just 0.013 seconds behind.

The final two minutes were frantic, with Auer improving further with his last set of new tyres, but BMW’s Tom Blomqvist rise to the top, only to be quickly beaten by Audi’s René Rast and team-mate Bruno Spengler. But it was BMW driver Martin who, with a time of 47.472, took the pole position for Race 1, improving on Rast by just five thousandths of a second and beating Robert Wickens’ 2015 record by over seven tenths.

Spengler was third, followed by Blomqvist and Auer, with the Mercedes driver just 0.112 seconds off the pace.

Ekström followed, with reigning champion Marco Wittmann in seventh, with fellow BMW driver Timo Glock next. Audi drivers Jamie Green and Nico Müller completed the top ten, with the Swiss just a quarter of a second from the pole.

The session was dismal for the Mercedes AMG team, not able to capitalise on their earlier place, seeing the rest of their cars in the final positions of the classification.

The start of Race 1 is scheduled for 13:28 CET.