Lausitzring DTM: Frijns beats Muller to pole by 0.018s
Robin Frijns claimed his fourth pole position of the DTM season at the Lausitzring on Sunday, outqualifying Abt Audi teammate Nico Muller by just 0.018s.
It was Race 1 winner Rene Rast who led qualifying after the first runs, his time of 1m36.507s putting him 0.042s clear of second-placed Frijns.
Muller sat third after the first flurry of laps, while Lucas Auer was the best of the BMW drivers in sixth, over six tenths off the ultimate pace.
When the second set of runs began, Abt teammates Muller and Frijns appeared to be on a charge, splitting purple sector times between them.
Muller was the first to cross the line, setting the quickest third sector of anyone to claim provisional pole.
Frijns set purple times in sectors 1 and 2 and, although he couldn’t quite match Muller in the final part of the lap, his time of 1m36.344s was good enough to claim his fourth pole position in six qualifying sessions so far.
Team Rosberg Audi driver Rast failed to improve his time on the second run and settled for third behind Muller, while Sheldon van der Linde posted an impressive laptime of 1m36.515s to put the best of the BMWs on the second row of the grid.
Audi’s Jamie Green qualified just 0.005s adrift of van der Linde in fifth, while two-time DTM champion Marco Wittmann was sixth in the second of the BMWs.
Saturday star Timo Glock (BMW) was 0.585s off the pace in seventh, and will share the fourth row of the grid with Audi’s Loic Duval.
Auer was unable to go any quicker than the 1m37.139s lap he managed in the first run and slipped to ninth in the final order, while Harrison Newey put in an inspired performance to qualify his WRT Audi in 10th.
Former Formula 1 driver Robert Kubica (ART BMW) delivered his best qualifying result so far with 11th, beating the factory BMWs of Philipp Eng and Jonathan Aberdein as well as the works Audi driven by Mike Rockenfeller.
Lausitzting DTM: Qualifying 2 results:
| Cla | Driver | Car | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Robin Frijns | Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'36.344 | |
| 2 |  Nico Müller | Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'36.362 | 0.018 |
| 3 |  René Rast | Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'36.468 | 0.124 |
| 4 |  Sheldon Van Der Linde | BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'36.615 | 0.271 |
| 5 |  Jamie Green | Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'36.620 | 0.276 |
| 6 | Marco Wittmann | BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'36.839 | 0.495 |
| 7 | Timo Glock | BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'36.930 | 0.586 |
| 8 |  Loic Duval | Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'37.061 | 0.717 |
| 9 |  Lucas Auer | BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'37.139 | 0.795 |
| 10 | Harrison Newey | Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'37.221 | 0.877 |
| 11 |  Robert Kubica | BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'37.272 | 0.928 |
| 12 | Philipp Eng | BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'37.287 | 0.943 |
| 13 | Fabio Scherer | Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'37.289 | 0.945 |
| 14 | Mike Rockenfeller | Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'37.364 | 1.020 |
| 15 | Ferdinand Habsburg | Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'37.381 | 1.037 |
| 16 | Jonathan Aberdein | BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 | 1'37.545 | 1.201 |
| View full results | ||||
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About this article
| Series | DTM |
| Event | Lausitzring II |
| Author | Rachit Thukral |
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