Mattias Ekström continued Audi’s dominance in the final DTM practice session of the weekend at the Red Bull Ring, hitting the top of the times with a minute to go to beat Mike Rockenfeller to the best lap.
The early pace in the morning’s half-hour fine-tuning session had gone to Rockenfeller, whose initial lap of 1 minute 22.607 seconds set the benchmark ahead of Audi’s colleagues René Rast and Ekström.
Whilst Rockenfeller then put in laps to keep himself near the top of the times, race one winner Ekström dropped down the order to 14th as other driver improved before he put in a new best time half a tenth faster than Rockenfeller to go back to the top with just over a minute to go.
Rockenfeller was thus 0.042 seconds behind in second, with race one pole-sitter Green in third, a further tenth and a half back.
Gary Paffett was the leading Mercedes driver in fourth behind his fellow Brit, ahead of the Audi of Nico Müller in fifth who continued to show strong pace.
Mercedes’ title contender Lucas Auer was sixth quickest at his home circuit, ahead of Rast in seventh and Maro Engel in eighth, the latter having hauled his Mercedes up the timesheets in the closing seconds with a late improvement.
Notably, there was not a single BMW driver inside the top half of the field, with Audi’s Loïc Duval and Mercedes’ Robert Wickens rounding out the top ten, the former ensuring that all six Audis featured inside the top half.
BMW’s double champion Marco Wittmann was therefore the best of the Munich marque’s drivers in 11th, 0.864 seconds off the pace.
Mercedes’ Edoardo Mortara was the only driver to experience issues in the session, with the Italian pulling off the circuit just before Turn 1 after completing only five laps with an apparent technical issues on his C63 AMG.
Qualifying for race two takes place at 12:00 CEST (11:00 BST), with the race itself following at 15:18 CEST (14:18 BST).
Session results
| POS | NO | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 5 | Mattias EKSTRÖM |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline | Audi RS5 DTM | 18 | 1:22.059 | 0.000 |
| 2 | 99 | Mike ROCKENFELLER |  |
Audi Sport Team Phoenix | Audi RS5 DTM | 19 | 1:22.101 | 0.042 |
| 3 | 53 | Jamie GREEN |  |
Audi Sport Team Rosberg | Audi RS5 DTM | 19 | 1:22.284 | 0.225 |
| 4 | 2 | Gary PAFFETT | |
Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Mercedes me | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 20 | 1:22.287 | 0.228 |
| 5 | 51 | Nico MÜLLER |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline | Audi RS5 DTM | 20 | 1:22.371 | 0.312 |
| 6 | 22 | Lucas AUER |  |
Mercedes-AMG Motorsport BWT | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 19 | 1:22.374 | 0.315 |
| 7 | 33 | René RAST | |
Audi Sport Team Rosberg | Audi RS5 DTM | 18 | 1:22.507 | 0.448 |
| 8 | 63 | Maro ENGEL | |
Mercedes-AMG Motorsport SILBERPFEIL Energy | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 17 | 1:22.535 | 0.476 |
| 9 | 77 | Loïc DUVAL |  |
Audi Sport Team Phoenix | Audi RS5 DTM | 19 | 1:22.815 | 0.756 |
| 10 | 6 | Robert WICKENS |  |
Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Mercedes me | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 19 | 1:22.902 | 0.843 |
| 11 | 11 | Marco WITTMANN | |
BMW Team RMG | BMW M4 DTM | 16 | 1:22.923 | 0.864 |
| 12 | 15 | Augusto FARFUS |  |
BMW Team RMG | BMW M4 DTM | 16 | 1:22.965 | 0.906 |
| 13 | 3 | Paul DI RESTA | |
Mercedes-AMG Motorsport SILBERPFEIL Energy | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 18 | 1:22.995 | 0.936 |
| 14 | 16 | Timo GLOCK | |
BMW Team RMR | BMW M4 DTM | 18 | 1:23.213 | 1.154 |
| 15 | 36 | Maxime MARTIN |  |
BMW Team RBM | BMW M4 DTM | 17 | 1:23.321 | 1.262 |
| 16 | 7 | Bruno SPENGLER | |
BMW Team RBM | BMW M4 DTM | 18 | 1:23.394 | 1.335 |
| 17 | 31 | Tom BLOMQVIST | |
BMW Team RMR | BMW M4 DTM | 17 | 1:23.405 | 1.346 |
| 18 | 48 | Edoardo MORTARA |  |
Mercedes-AMG Motorsport BWT | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 5 | 1:26.831 | 4.772 |