Qualifying report
DTM Hockenheimring
Hockenheim DTM: Van der Linde retakes points lead with pole
Audi’s Kelvin van der Linde snatched pole position from the Mercedes of Lucas Auer with a last-gasp effort in Sunday’s Hockenheim qualifying, retaking the points lead from Liam Lawson.
Rachit Thukral
Edited: Oct 3, 2021, 11:29 AM
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Having drawn level with Lawson following victory in Saturday’s opening encounter, van der Linde has now edged three points ahead of the Red Bull protege with his fifth pole of the season.
It was van der Linde’s Abt Sportsline teammate Mike Rockenfeller that led the timesheets going into the final minutes of qualifying with an unconventional single-run strategy.
The 2013 DTM champion had the track almost entirely to himself in the middle part of the session and took full advantage of the clear space to post a time of 1m37.940s, securing provisional pole.
Ultimately, that wasn’t simply quick enough for pole position, as laptimes tumbled rapidly in the last stages of qualifying.
GetSpeed’s Arjun Maini was the first driver to depose the Audi driver from the top spot, moving the goalposts with a time 1m37.513s on his first flyer.
Winward driver Auer went fractionally quicker next time out to make it a provisional front row lock out for Mercedes.
However, after aborting his penultimate lap, van der Linde improved to a 1m37.392s right at the end of the session to snatch the top spot from Auer and complete a clean sweep of front rows at Hockenheim.
Assen winner Auer had to settle for second spot ahead of Maini, who equalled his best-ever qualifying result of the season in third. The two drivers were involved in a collision on the opening lap in Saturday’s race, with Maini slamming into the side of Auer’s Mercedes under braking for Turn 6.
Meanwhile, pre-event championship leader Lawson ended 0.144s off the pace in fourth after failing to improve on a 1m37.657s on his final flying lap. The Red Bull driver essentially completed a single timed run, having not set a representative time in the first 10 minutes of qualifying.
GruppeM Mercedes driver Daniel Juncadella was again in the mix as he set the fifth-fastest time in qualifying, ahead of the second Red Bull-backed AF Corse Ferrari of Alex Albon.
Rockenfeller’s previous lap left him seventh on the grid for the race, ahead of the HRT Mercedes of Maximilian Gotz and Vincent Abril.
A day after suffering a big blow to his title hopes, Walkenhorst BMW driver Marco Wittmann could only qualify 10th with a time that was seven tenths slower than van der Linde’s chart-topping lap.
Contesting his second-only qualifying in the DTM, 2016/17 Formula E champion Lucas di Grassi ended up 19th on the grid with a best time of 1m38.950s in an Abt Sportsline Audi.
Qualifying results:
Cla # Driver Car Time Gap 1 3 Kelvin van der Linde
Audi R8 LMS Evo 1'37.392 2 22 Lucas Auer
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'37.479 0.087 3 36 Arjun Maini
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'37.513 0.121 4 30 Liam Lawson
Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 1'37.657 0.265 5 8 Daniel Juncadella
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'37.746 0.354 6 23 Alex Albon
Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 1'37.761 0.369 7 9 Mike Rockenfeller
Audi R8 LMS Evo 1'37.940 0.548 8 4 Maximilian Götz
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'37.986 0.594 9 5 Vincent Abril
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'38.015 0.623 10 11 Marco Wittmann
BMW M6 GT3 1'38.045 0.653 11 57 Philip Ellis
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'38.104 0.712 12 10 Esteban Muth
BMW M6 GT3 1'38.126 0.734 13 51 Nico Müller
Audi R8 LMS Evo 1'38.222 0.830 14 31 Sheldon Van Der Linde
BMW M6 GT3 1'38.512 1.120 15 16 Timo Glock
BMW M6 GT3 1'38.687 1.295 16 26 Esmee Hawkey
Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 1'38.830 1.438 17 99 Sophia Flörsch
Audi R8 LMS Evo 1'38.853 1.461 18 18 Marvin Dienst
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'38.889 1.497 19 37 Lucas di Grassi
Audi R8 LMS Evo 1'38.950 1.558 20 12 Dev Gore
Audi R8 LMS Evo 1'39.172 1.780 21 6 Hubert Haupt
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'39.272 1.880 View full results
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