Italian Audi driver Edoardo Mortara has taken his first-ever pole position in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters around the Red Bull Ring, with Mercedes’ Gary Paffett joining him on the front row of the grid.
Click here for the full Round 4 Qualifying results.
Mortara is the fourth different pole sitter of the year in a season which is already proving to be one of the most competitive for years. The Audi Sport Team Rosberg driver will be joined on the front row of the grid by Mercedes’ championship leader Gary Paffett, who was just over a tenth slower in the decisive Q4. Paffett had earlier been the fastest driver in Q2.
Mattis Ekström, who was quickest in Q3, made it two Audi drivers inside the top three positions by qualifying in third and the Swede will be joined by BMW’s Martin Tomczyk on the second row of the grid.
American Joey Hand enjoyed his strongest-ever DTM qualifying session to post the fifth fastest time. Current second-placed man in the championship, Canadian Bruno Spengler, will start from sixth after a strong qualifying session for BMW saw them qualify three cars inside the top six places.
Jamie Green was seventh for Mercedes, having been the fastest driver in the first part of qualifying. The Brit was just ahead of Filipe Albuquerque, who had earlier gone fastest in second practice. Germans Dirk Werner and Ralf Schumacher completed the top ten for BMW and Mercedes respectively.
Augusto Farfus was once again the top BMW Team RBM driver in 13th, ahead of Audi Sport Team Phoenix’s Miguel Molina and Mike Rockenfeller. Another difficult session for former double champion Timo Scheider meant that he ended up in 16th and as the second-slowest Audi driver.
It was a difficult qualifying session for three of the DTM’s Brits – with Andy Priaulx continuing to struggle with the set-up of his car and therefore qualifying down in 18th position. Susie Wolff, who had on Friday been 12th fastest in practice, could only manage 20th, whilst David Coulthard will start Round 4 from the very back of the grid after being more than 1.2 seconds off the pace in Q1.
Round 4 of the 2012 DTM takes place on Sunday at 13:33 CEST.