DTM Zandvoort: Feller takes pole for Audi in red-flagged qualifying

With just under four minutes left to go in the session, Grasser Racing driver Schmid lost control of his Lamborghini coming out of Turn 3, with his SSR Performance counterpart Deledda crashing his Huracan at almost the same time at Turn 8.

The red flag was deployed to assist marshals in recovering the two Lamborghinis, before the track was cleared again for a short, three-minute session.

Manthey EMA Porsche’s Thomas Preining was leading qualifying at this stage thanks to a 1m33.364s lap set in the first 10 minutes, with Saturday polesitter Maro Engel holding second in his Landgraf Mercedes.

Due to time constraints, drivers had time for only one flying lap, with Engel leading the field of cars out of the pitlane as he aimed to secure a double pole.

But it would be Feller that would end qualifying on top, setting a time of 1m33.020s to take his second career pole by just over three tenths of a second.

Both Preining and Engel were unable to improve on their previous laptimes and ended up second and third on the grid, while a late effort from Orange1’s Patric Niederhauser secured the factory Audi driver a spot on the second row.

Niederhauser’s late improvement dropped Team Bernhard Porsche’s Laurin Heinrich to fifth, ahead of the HRT Mercedes of Luca Stolz.

Project 1 driver Marco Wittmann’s pre-red flag time of 1m33.610s made him the top BMW representative in seventh, ahead of the Porsches of Ayhancan Guven (Bernhard) and Dennis Olsen (Manthey EMA).

Kelvin van der Linde rounded out the top 10 for Abt with a time that was 0.741s down on his polesitting team-mate Feller.

Albert Costa led the way for Ferrari in 11th as he continued to impress oon his debut weekend for Emil Frey Racing as a substitute for Jack Aitken, while Christian Engelhart managed to qualify 12th in the Toksport WRT Porsche despite a late spin in qualifying.

Dries Vanthoor, the other substitute driver on the grid, qualified 14th for Schubert BMW behind the Audi of Luca Engstler.

Reigning champion Sheldon van der Linde had not set a flying lap when the qualifying was red-flagged with just over three minutes left on the clock. Although he was able to return on track and set a time, it left him 17th on the grid a day after he had qualified on the front row.

It was a difficult qualifying for Lamborghini, with SSR Performance’s Franck Perera the Italian manufacturer’s best representative in 18th ahead of team-mate Mirko Bortolotti.

DTM Zandvoort - Qualifying results:

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	7	Ricardo Feller	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1'33.020
2	91	Thomas Preining	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	1'33.364	0.344
3	48	Maro Engel	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'33.517	0.497
4	83	Patric Niederhauser	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1'33.554	0.534
5	75	Laurin Heinrich	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	1'33.570	0.550
6	4	Luca Stolz	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'33.608	0.588
7	11	Marco Wittmann	BMW M4 GT3	1'33.610	0.590
8	24	Ayhancan Güven	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	1'33.621	0.601
9	90	Dennis Olsen	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	1'33.736	0.716
10	3	Kelvin van der Linde	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1'33.761	0.741
11	14	Jack Aitken	Ferrari 296 GT3	1'33.763	0.743
12	99	Christian Engelhart	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	1'33.872	0.852
13	8	Luca Engstler	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1'33.907	0.887
14	33	René Rast	BMW M4 GT3	1'33.947	0.927
15	22	Lucas Auer	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'33.950	0.930
16	9	Tim Heinemann	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	1'33.960	0.940
17	1	Sheldon Van Der Linde	BMW M4 GT3	1'34.040	1.020
18	94	Frank Perera	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	1'34.081	1.061
19	92	Mirko Bortolotti	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	1'34.163	1.143
20	36	Arjun Maini	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'34.186	1.166
21	84	Jusuf Owega	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'34.262	1.242
22	27	David Schumacher	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'34.351	1.331
23	40	Mattia Drudi	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1'34.527	1.507
24	69	Thierry Vermeulen	Ferrari 296 GT3	1'34.639	1.619
25	19	Mick Wishofer	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	1'35.185	2.165
26	6	Alessio Deledda	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	1'35.940	2.920
27	63	Clemens Schmid	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	1'36.450	3.430
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