Qualifying report
DTM Norisring
DTM Norisring: Van der Linde beats Preining to pole in Saturday qualifying
Reigning DTM champion Sheldon van der Linde claimed his first pole position of the 2023 season after topping Saturday’s qualifying session at the Norisring.
Rachit Thukral
Edited: Jul 8, 2023, 9:27 AM
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Due to the short nature of the Nuremberg street circuit, the 27-driver grid was split into two groups for qualifying, with each group getting 20 minutes of on-track time.
Van der Linde was part of the second qualifying session and lapped the 2.3km circuit in 48.775s in his Schubert BMW, beating Thomas Preining’s time from Group A by 0.178s to take pole position.
Manthey EMA’s Prening had set the pace in Friday practice ahead of qualifying and was the only driver from his group to dip into 48s, but the laptimes in the second session were much quicker - with a total of six drivers breaking the 49s barrier.
Among that quartet was Team Bernhard Porsche driver Ayhancan Guven, whose time of 48.791s - which was just 0.016s slower than van der Linde’s pole time - put him third on the grid.
Second-fastest in Group A, HRT Mercedes driver Luca Stolz qualified fourth alongside Guven, with Abt driver Kelvin van der Linde the top representative for Audi in fifth.
Mirko Bortolotti was next up in sixth for SSR Performance Lamborghini, while Schubert BMW’s Rene Rast qualified seventh on his return to DTM after missing last month’s Zandvoort round due to clashing commitments in Formula E.
Winward driver Lucas Auer was seventh-fastest ahead of fellow Mercedes racer Jusuf Owega (Landgraf), while the top 10 was completed by Ricardo Feller in the Abt Audi.
Several leading DTM drivers were off the pace in the two-part qualifying session, with Zandvoort Race 1 winner Maro Engel ending up 14th in the Landgraf Mercedes, two-time DTM champion Marco Wittmann (Project 1 BMW) finishing only 16th, and Franck Perera languishing in 17th in his SSR Lamborghini.
One-time F1 race starter Jack Aitken also endured a tough qualifying session as he qualified all the way down in 26th position for Emil Frey, just behind team-mate Thierry Vermeulen, as Ferrari ended up as the slowest of the six manufacturers.
Group A results:
Cla Driver Car Time Gap 1 Thomas Preining
Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 48.933 2 Luca Stolz
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 49.046 0.113 3 Mirko Bortolotti
Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 49.049 0.116 4 Lucas Auer
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 49.120 0.187 5 Ricardo Feller
Audi R8 LMS Evo II 49.154 0.221 6 Laurin Heinrich
Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 49.241 0.308 7 Maro Engel
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 49.259 0.326 8 Christian Engelhart
Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 49.314 0.381 9 Frank Perera
Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 49.366 0.433 10 Mick Wishofer
Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 49.513 0.580 11 Luca Engstler
Audi R8 LMS Evo II 49.555 0.622 12 Mattia Drudi
Audi R8 LMS Evo II 49.564 0.631 13 Jack Aitken
Ferrari 296 GT3 49.766 0.833 14 Alessio Deledda
Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 49.887 0.954 View full results
Group B results:
Cla Driver Car Time Gap 1 Sheldon Van Der Linde
BMW M4 GT3 48.775 2 Ayhancan Güven
Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 48.791 0.016 3 Kelvin van der Linde
Audi R8 LMS Evo II 48.821 0.046 4 René Rast
BMW M4 GT3 48.939 0.164 5 Jusuf Owega
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 48.991 0.216 6 Dennis Olsen
Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 48.993 0.218 7 Tim Heinemann
Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 49.079 0.304 8 Arjun Maini
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 49.140 0.365 9 Marco Wittmann
BMW M4 GT3 49.154 0.379 10 David Schumacher
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 49.282 0.507 11 Clemens Schmid
Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 49.290 0.515 12 Patric Niederhauser
Audi R8 LMS Evo II 49.544 0.769 13 Thierry Vermeulen
Ferrari 296 GT3 49.920 1.145 View full results
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