Audi driver Adrien Tambay scored his first-ever pole position in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season opener at the Hockenheimring, denying BMW’s Marco Wittmann the top time.
In his third season in the DTM, Frenchman Tambay was quick throughout most of qualifying. 14th fastest in Q1 was enough to progress through to Q2, where Tambay finished third. In Q3 the Frenchman posted the fastest time inside the final five minutes of the session, and with it took pole despite a late scare from António Félix da Costa.
Da Costa briefly went fastest before the Portugese racer’s time was later disallowed after he was adjudged to have run too wide, leaving Tambay with his first pole in the DTM.
Wittmann was second fastest and was narrowly denied his second pole position in the DTM by 0.147 seconds.
Da Costa was able to put in another lap after his first was disallowed, putting him an impressive third fastest on his DTM début weekend.
Former champion Bruno Spengler was fourth fastest for BMW, ahead of fellow former champion Mattias Ekström in fifth. Indeed all four of the Abt Sportsline Audis made it through to the final qualifying segment, with Miguel Molina in sixth.
Edoardo Mortara and Martin Tomczyk were the final two drivers to make it through to Q3 and qualified in seventh and eighth for Audi and BMW respectively. Schnitzer’s Tomczyk was particularly lucky to make it though to the final segment of qualifying, having been the slowest driver through in Q1.
Qualifying proved to be a disaster for Mercedes-Benz, with the top driver for the three-pointed star being Gary Paffett down in 15th position. Q1 was a disaster for the marque, with the only cars eliminated being Mercedes, with neither Paul di Resta, Daniel Juncadella, Robert Wickens, Christian Vietoris or Vitaly Petrov progressing beyond the first phase.
Top ten times
| POS | NO | CL | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 16 | Adrien TAMBAY |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt | Audi RS5 DTM | 6 | 1:32.272 | 0.000 | |
| 2 | 23 | Marco WITTMANN |  |
BMW Team RMG | BMW M4 DTM | 6 | 1:32.419 | 0.147 | |
| 3 | 18 | António Félix da COSTA |  |
BMW Team MTEK | BMW M4 DTM | 3 | 1:32.475 | 0.203 | |
| 4 | 9 | Bruno SPENGLER |  |
BMW Team Schnitzer | BMW M4 DTM | 3 | 1:32.600 | 0.328 | |
| 5 | 7 | Mattias EKSTRÖM |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline | Audi RS5 DTM | 5 | 1:32.624 | 0.352 | |
| 6 | 8 | Miguel MOLINA |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline | Audi RS5 DTM | 6 | 1:32.787 | 0.515 | |
| 7 | 15 | Edoardo MORTARA |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt | Audi RS5 DTM | 6 | 1:32.898 | 0.626 | |
| 8 | 10 | Martin TOMCZYK | |
BMW Team Schnitzer | BMW M4 DTM | 4 | 1:33.113 | 0.841 | |
| 9 | 17 | Timo GLOCK | |
BMW Team MTEK | BMW M4 DTM | 7 | 1:32.603 | 0.231 | |
| 10 | 2 | Timo SCHEIDER | |
Audi Sport Team Phoenix | Audi RS5 DTM | 8 | 1:32.706 | 0.334 |