Lausitzring DTM: Auer leads Mercedes 1-2 in first qualifying

The Austrian, who built a 14-point championship lead in the season opener at Hockenheim, set a time of 1m16.193s in the late stages of the 20-minute session.

Auer was second after the first part of the session, but just a hundredth behind Audi's Rene Rast.

Robert Wickens went on to take the lead as the final flyers began, but Auer lowered the top 2016 Mercedes driver's benchmark by a tenth.

Wickens settled for second followed by the top drivers of the other two manufacturers, Maxime Martin of BMW and Rast.

Martin grabbed third with a late flyer by just 0.016s, as Rast himself was narrowly ahead of Timo Glock and Tom Blomqvist.

Audi duo Nico Muller and Mike Rockenfeller were seventh and eighth respectively, as the top 10 was rounded out by Gary Paffett and Edoardo Mortara.

All 18 cars were within less than a second, as Bruno Spengler in the last position set a time of 1m17.097s, only him and Paul di Resta failing to make it into the 1m16s.

UPDATE: Jamie Green was disqualified for using a tyre that was not assigned to him but his teammate Rast, and lost his 12th pace on the grid.

Qualifying results

Cla	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	Lucas Auer	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	1'16.193
2	Robert Wickens	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	1'16.298	0.105
3	Maxime Martin	BMW M4 DTM	1'16.404	0.211
4	René Rast	Audi RS5 DTM	1'16.420	0.227
5	Timo Glock	BMW M4 DTM	1'16.424	0.231
6	Tom Blomqvist	BMW M4 DTM	1'16.473	0.280
7	Nico Müller	Audi RS5 DTM	1'16.484	0.291
8	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi RS5 DTM	1'16.506	0.313
9	Gary Paffett	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	1'16.510	0.317
10	Edoardo Mortara	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	1'16.542	0.349
11	Marco Wittmann	BMW M4 DTM	1'16.551	0.358
12	Mattias Ekström	Audi RS5 DTM	1'16.751	0.558
13	Maro Engel	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	1'16.775	0.582
14	Augusto Farfus	BMW M4 DTM	1'16.804	0.611
15	Loic Duval	Audi RS5 DTM	1'16.981	0.788
16	Paul di Resta	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	1'17.020	0.827
17	Bruno Spengler	BMW M4 DTM	1'17.097	0.904
DSQ	Jamie Green	Audi RS5 DTM	1'16.560	0.367