Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

Australia
Qualifying report

Hockenheim DTM: Eng bags pole with dazzling lap

BMW’s Philipp Eng bounced back from a disastrous start to his DTM season to take pole for the second race of the opening round at Hockenheim.

Philipp Eng, BMW Team RBM, BMW M4 DTM

Philipp Eng, BMW Team RBM, BMW M4 DTM

Mario Bartkowiak

Eng, whose RBM-run M4 was stricken in FP2 and first qualifying by a sensor problem that shut down the electronics, put in a blistering lap late in the session to beat Saturday race winner and BMW stablemate Marco Wittmann by a clear 0.416 seconds.

The Austrian’s performance proved the pace of the new, 2.0-litre turbocharged, four-cylinder DTM machines – it was 1.5s quicker than Tom Blomqvist’s qualifying lap record from 2017, and 3.3s faster than Gary Paffett’s qualifying benchmark from 2018, when the common-parts concept was introduced.

Wittmann was sitting pretty after the first runs, over 0.3s quicker than the best of the opposition, but his two quick laps at the end of the session on his second set of tyres had no answer to Eng.

Like Wittmann, Audi pair Robin Frijns and Nico Muller improved on the final lap as the chequered flag was unfurled and they will start from third and fourth respectively, but worrying news for Audi is that the time of Frijns is 0.740s slower than Eng’s best.

BMW dominates the third row, with Bruno Spengler lining up alongside Timo Glock, and the two-by-two pattern continues on the fourth row thanks to Audi drivers Jamie Green and Loic Duval, and on the fifth rank with BMW pairing Joel Eriksson and Sheldon van der Linde.

Saturday runner-up Mike Rockenfeller was second on the first runs, but returned his Audi to the pits without setting a quick lap on his second set of tyres, dropping to 11th.

It was even worse news for Rene Rast, who launched the front end of his Audi skywards over the kerbs entering the stadium on his first run.

After attention to the car in the pits, Rast returned to the tracks but could not improve, having a lap deleted for track limits and dropping to 16th on the grid.

That puts him in the middle of the R-Motorsport Aston Martins, with Daniel Juncadella the quickest of the Vantage quartet on his way to 14th in the times.

Cla Driver Car Laps Time Gap km/h
1 Austria Philipp Eng
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 10 1'28.972 185.073
2 Germany Marco Wittmann
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 10 1'29.388 0.416 184.212
3 Netherlands Robin Frijns
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 10 1'29.712 0.740 183.547
4 Switzerland Nico Müller
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 11 1'29.734 0.762 183.502
5 Canada Bruno Spengler
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 11 1'29.899 0.927 183.165
6 Germany Timo Glock
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 9 1'29.910 0.938 183.143
7 United Kingdom Jamie Green
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 11 1'29.911 0.939 183.141
8 France Loic Duval
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 11 1'29.915 0.943 183.132
9 Sweden Joel Eriksson
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 9 1'29.920 0.948 183.122
10 South Africa Sheldon Van Der Linde
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 11 1'29.957 0.985 183.047
11 Germany Mike Rockenfeller
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 7 1'30.088 1.116 182.781
12 South Africa Jonathan Aberdein
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 10 1'30.122 1.150 182.712
13 Brazil Pietro Fittipaldi
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 9 1'30.126 1.154 182.704
14 Spain Daniel Juncadella
Aston Martin Vantage DTM 10 1'30.273 1.301 182.406
15 United Kingdom Paul di Resta
Aston Martin Vantage DTM 9 1'30.403 1.431 182.144
16 Germany René Rast
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 9 1'30.568 1.596 181.812
17 Austria Ferdinand Habsburg
Aston Martin Vantage DTM 11 1'30.702 1.730 181.543
18 United Kingdom Jake Dennis
Aston Martin Vantage DTM 10 1'31.031 2.059 180.887

Be part of Motorsport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Hockenheim DTM: Wittmann fends off Audis to win opener
Next article Hockenheim DTM: Rast charges from back to seal epic win for Audi

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

Australia