DTM Norisring: Van der Linde beats Preining to pole in Saturday qualifying

Due to the short nature of the Nuremberg street circuit, the 27-driver grid was split into two groups for qualifying, with each group getting 20 minutes of on-track time. 

Van der Linde was part of the second qualifying session and lapped the 2.3km circuit in 48.775s in his Schubert BMW, beating Thomas Preining’s time from Group A by 0.178s to take pole position.

Manthey EMA’s Prening had set the pace in Friday practice ahead of qualifying and was the only driver from his group to dip into 48s, but the laptimes in the second session were much quicker - with a total of six drivers breaking the 49s barrier.

Among that quartet was Team Bernhard Porsche driver Ayhancan Guven, whose time of 48.791s - which was just 0.016s slower than van der Linde’s pole time - put him third on the grid.

Second-fastest in Group A, HRT Mercedes driver Luca Stolz qualified fourth alongside Guven, with Abt driver Kelvin van der Linde the top representative for Audi in fifth.

Mirko Bortolotti was next up in sixth for SSR Performance Lamborghini, while Schubert BMW’s Rene Rast qualified seventh on his return to DTM after missing last month’s Zandvoort round due to clashing commitments in Formula E.

Winward driver Lucas Auer was seventh-fastest ahead of fellow Mercedes racer Jusuf Owega (Landgraf), while the top 10 was completed by Ricardo Feller in the Abt Audi.

Ricardo Feller, Team ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3

Photo by: Andreas Beil

Several leading DTM drivers were off the pace in the two-part qualifying session, with Zandvoort Race 1 winner Maro Engel ending up 14th in the Landgraf Mercedes, two-time DTM champion Marco Wittmann (Project 1 BMW) finishing only 16th, and Franck Perera languishing in 17th in his SSR Lamborghini.

One-time F1 race starter Jack Aitken also endured a tough qualifying session as he qualified all the way down in 26th position for Emil Frey, just behind team-mate Thierry Vermeulen, as Ferrari ended up as the slowest of the six manufacturers.

Group A results:

Cla	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	Thomas Preining	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	48.933
2	Luca Stolz	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	49.046	0.113
3	Mirko Bortolotti	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	49.049	0.116
4	Lucas Auer	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	49.120	0.187
5	Ricardo Feller	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	49.154	0.221
6	Laurin Heinrich	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	49.241	0.308
7	Maro Engel	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	49.259	0.326
8	Christian Engelhart	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	49.314	0.381
9	Frank Perera	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	49.366	0.433
10	Mick Wishofer	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	49.513	0.580
11	Luca Engstler	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	49.555	0.622
12	Mattia Drudi	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	49.564	0.631
13	Jack Aitken	Ferrari 296 GT3	49.766	0.833
14	Alessio Deledda	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	49.887	0.954
View full results

Group B results:

Cla	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	Sheldon Van Der Linde	BMW M4 GT3	48.775
2	Ayhancan Güven	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	48.791	0.016
3	Kelvin van der Linde	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	48.821	0.046
4	René Rast	BMW M4 GT3	48.939	0.164
5	Jusuf Owega	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	48.991	0.216
6	Dennis Olsen	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	48.993	0.218
7	Tim Heinemann	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	49.079	0.304
8	Arjun Maini	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	49.140	0.365
9	Marco Wittmann	BMW M4 GT3	49.154	0.379
10	David Schumacher	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	49.282	0.507
11	Clemens Schmid	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	49.290	0.515
12	Patric Niederhauser	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	49.544	0.769
13	Thierry Vermeulen	Ferrari 296 GT3	49.920	1.145
View full results