Bruno Spengler has given BMW its first Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters pole position in twenty years at the Lausitzring this afternoon – beating BMW team-mate Augusto Farfus to the top of the times.
Click here for the full Round 2 Qualifying results.
Canadian Spengler posted a lap of 1:18.777 in Q4 to ensure that he would start on pole at the tri-oval east German circuit, with fellow BMW pilot Farfus alongside. The Brazilian’s final lap in qualifying was less than half a second off his team-mates. Farfus had earlier been fastest in both the Q2 and Q3 sessions, but had no answer to Spengler in Q4.
Third is the winner of the opening race of the season Gary Paffett for Mercedes-Benz. Starting alongside the Brit will be Audi driver Mike Rockenfeller, who could not post a quick lap in Q4 and ended up almost five tenths off pole. The German had earlier posted the fastest time in Q1 and was second fastest in Q3, but made a mistake on his lap in Q4.
Edoardo Mortara will start from fifth for tomorrow’s DTM race, having just missed the cut into Q4 by half a second. Alongside the Italian will be Brit Jamie Green.
Martin Tomczyk was the only other BMW driver to qualify inside the top ten in seventh, whilst the man who took pole position last time out, Audi’s Mattias Ekström, will start from eighth.
Miguel Molina and Adrien Tambay completed the top ten for Audi, once again ensuring that the Ingolstadt-based manufacturer had five of its cars inside the top ten. Filipe Albuquerque and Timo Scheider made it five Audi’s in a row by qualifying in 11th and 12th.
Guernseyman Andy Priaulx and American Joey Hand will share the seventh row of the grid in 13th and 14th.
It was a challenging qualifying session for Mercedes, after the highs of its 1-2 finish at the season opener at Hockenheim. Only two drivers, Paffett and Green, were able to qualify inside the top ten with the rest of the manufacturers entrants occupying the positions between 15th and 20th.
Round 2 of the 2012 DTM season takes place on Sunday at 1403 Berlin time.