Qualifying report

DTM Spa

Spa DTM: Porsche locks out front row in wet qualifying

SSR Performance driver Dennis Olsen led a front row lockout for Porsche in a wet DTM qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps, as championship protagonists Sheldon van der Linde and Mirko Bortolotti qualified 22nd and 20th respectively.

Rachit Thukral

Edited: Sep 10, 2022, 5:38 PM

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Dennis Olsen, SSR Performance Porsche 911 GT3-R

It was reigning champion Maximilian Gotz who led the 20-minute session after the opening runs, the Winward Mercedes driver lapping the 7.0km circuit in 2m30.800s on a set of wet tyres.

This put him just 0.007s ahead of the Porsche of Olsen, with teammate Lucas Auer adrift by exactly the same margin in third in Winward’s second AMG GT3.

However, while Gotz failed to improve his laptime in the second part of qualifying even as the track started to dry out, several others were able to make marginal gains to demote the German driver from the top spot on the leaderboard.

Practice pacesetter Thomas Preining was the first driver to push Gotz off the top spot and move to the front, clocking a time of 2m30.634s in the Team Bernhard 75 Porsche 911 GT3 R.

But the honour of scoring Stuttgart marque’s first pole in the DTM instead went to Olsen, who hauled his SSR Performance car to the top just seconds later with a 2m30.488s.

With Dev Gore beaching his Team Rosberg Audi at Bruxelles in the final minute and prompting a yellow flag, no one could improve significantly enough to deny Olsen from becoming the ninth different driver to score a pole this season.

This meant Preining settled for second, 0.146s off his Porsche stablemate, while Auer claimed the third spot on the grid after overhauling Gotz’s previous benchmark by just 0.121s.

Laurens Vanthoor backed up the results of his Porsche squadmates by leaping up to fifth late in qualifying in the second of the two SSR 911s.

Maro Engel was sixth-fastest in the lead GruppeM Mercedes, while David Schumacher secured his best qualifying result of the season in seventh and ensured all three cars from the Winward team were inside the top 10.

Kelvin van der Linde was Audi’s top qualifier in eighth despite prompting a FCY when he beached his Team Abt R8 LMS GT3 after clipping the wet kerbs at Pouhon.

Van der Linde’s car was dragged back to the track with the help of a service vehicle with nine minutes still to run, allowing him to finish the session and set a time of2m31.233s.

Red Bull’s Felipe Fraga qualified 0.760s off the pace in ninth in the top AF Corse-run Ferrari, while the top 10 was rounded out by Nico Muller’s Team Rosberg Audi.

Team Abt’s star driver Rene Rast qualified just behind Muller in 11th and with a strong chance of making ground on his championship rivals, who all qualified out of position.

Grasser Lamborghini’s Bortolotti ended up a distant 20th with a time that was over two seconds off the pace, while points leader Sheldon van der Linde couldn’t fare any better in 22nd in his Schubert BMW.

DTM Spa - Qualifying results:

Cla Nº Driver Car / Engine Time Gap 1 94 Dennis Olsen Porsche 2'30.488 2 24 Thomas Preining Porsche 2'30.634 0.146 3 22 Lucas Auer Mercedes 2'30.679 0.191 4 1 Maximilian Götz Mercedes 2'30.800 0.312 5 92 Laurens Vanthoor Porsche 2'30.923 0.435 6 88 Maro Engel Mercedes 2'31.054 0.566 7 27 David Schumacher Mercedes 2'31.087 0.599 8 3 Kelvin van der Linde Audi 2'31.233 0.745 9 74 Felipe Fraga Ferrari 2'31.248 0.760 10 51 Nico Müller Audi 2'31.335 0.847 11 33 René Rast Audi 2'31.521 1.033 12 37 Nick Cassidy Ferrari 2'31.809 1.321 13 36 Arjun Maini Mercedes 2'32.037 1.549 14 7 Ricardo Feller Audi 2'32.095 1.607 15 4 Luca Stolz Mercedes 2'32.247 1.759 16 18 Maximilian Buhk Mercedes 2'32.259 1.771 17 11 Marco Wittmann BMW 2'32.262 1.774 18 10 Esteban Muth BMW 2'32.534 2.046 19 85 Clemens Schmid Lamborghini 2'32.638 2.150 20 63 Mirko Bortolotti Lamborghini 2'32.682 2.194 21 55 Mikaël Grenier Mercedes 2'32.887 2.399 22 31 Sheldon van der Linde BMW 2'33.138 2.650 23 25 Philipp Eng BMW 2'33.183 2.695 24 19 Rolf Ineichen Lamborghini 2'33.756 3.268 25 66 Marius Zug Audi 2'33.875 3.387 26 12 Dev Gore Audi 2'34.505 4.017 27 6 Alessio Deledda Lamborghini 2'36.511 6.023

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