Norisring DTM: Ekstrom quickest but Blomqvist takes pole

Ekstrom had picked up a three-place grid drop for hitting Mercedes' leading duo Christian Vietoris and Robert Wickens in the Saturday race, a move that effectively resulted in victory for stablemate Edoardo Mortara.

While nobody had dipped into the 47s margin on Friday or Saturday, it took little time for that goal to be checked off Sunday qualifying - Marco Wittmann doing a 47.967s.

Shortly thereafter, Lucas Auer surpassed that mark by 0.007s, before a 47.877s lap from Paul di Resta gave the ex-F1 driver the lead at halfway point in the session.

Unlike in Saturday qualifying, however, the mid-session benchmark would prove insufficient for pole.

Late on in the session, Ekstrom set the new best lap with a 47.804s, before Tom Blomqvist moved up to second on the timing screens with a lap 0.016s off, ensuring that he would get pole position after having started 20th on Saturday.

Di Resta, who did not improve in the late running, had to settle for a front-row start - and had four other drivers within a quarter of a tenth of his time.

Nico Muller was closest and will thus start third, sharing row two with Audi stablemate Ekstrom.

Auer ended up fifth, ahead of Maxime Martin and Wickens, the top seven split by just a tenth.

Adrien Tambay, Mortara and Wittmann made up the top 10.

It was a qualifying to forget for two Saturday frontrunners, with Vietoris having to settle for P15 and runner-up Jamie Green joining him on row eight.

Qualifying results

Pos.	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	Mattias Ekström	Audi RS5 DTM	47.804
2	Tom Blomqvist	BMW M4 DTM	47.820	0.016
3	Paul di Resta	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	47.877	0.073
4	Nico Müller	Audi RS5 DTM	47.889	0.085
5	Lucas Auer	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	47.891	0.087
6	Maxime Martin	BMW M4 DTM	47.895	0.091
7	Robert Wickens	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	47.902	0.098
8	Adrien Tambay	Audi RS5 DTM	47.947	0.143
9	Edoardo Mortara	Audi RS5 DTM	47.953	0.149
10	Marco Wittmann	BMW M4 DTM	47.967	0.163
11	Antonio Felix da Costa	BMW M4 DTM	47.996	0.192
12	Maximilian Götz	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.029	0.225
13	Timo Scheider	Audi RS5 DTM	48.032	0.228
14	Bruno Spengler	BMW M4 DTM	48.044	0.240
15	Christian Vietoris	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.046	0.242
16	Jamie Green	Audi RS5 DTM	48.050	0.246
17	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi RS5 DTM	48.083	0.279
18	Gary Paffett	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.089	0.285
19	Esteban Ocon	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.101	0.297
20	Daniel Juncadella	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.110	0.306
21	Timo Glock	BMW M4 DTM	48.119	0.315
22	Augusto Farfus	BMW M4 DTM	48.129	0.325
23	Miguel Molina	Audi RS5 DTM	48.139	0.335
24	Martin Tomczyk	BMW M4 DTM	48.249	0.445