Mercedes’ Robert Wickens took pole position in qualifying for the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters at the Norisring for the second consecutive year, beating Brits Paul Di Resta and Jamie Green to the top time.
Canadian Wickens has been near the top of the times all day, going second fastest in first practice before topping second practice. In qualifying the Mercedes driver was second in Q1 before topping the Q2 and Q3 times.
“Going into the weekend I was expecting this to be a better race for us, but I didn’t know it would be so good,” said Wickens after taking his second career pole in the DTM. “It would be nice to one day get pole position somewhere else. But I’m definitely happy to be starting as the first car [on the grid].”
“It’s always been clear that Mercedes built a good engine – we’re lucky with that we have a good drivetrain behind us. The circuit doesn’t really have the characteristics that were struggling with on the other circuits, and the car’s always been good on the brakes.”
Di Resta was second fastest, securing his first front-row grid position since the season finale in Shanghai in 2010.
Audi’s Green was third fastest, also securing his best qualifying result of the season, with an improvement inside the final three minutes of Q3.
Fourth-placed Pascal Wehrlein headed up a trio of Mercedes drivers that meant that five of the manufacturer’s seven cars made it into the final segment of qualifying. The youngest Mercedes driver finished the session ahead of Gary Paffett in fifth and Christian Vietoris in sixth.
Swede Mattias Ekström was the second-best Audi driver in seventh, ahead of BMW’s Marco Wittmann in eighth. The championship leader was the only BMW driver to make it into Q3 as the Munich marque continues to struggle around the Nuremberg circuit.
Adrien Tambay and Nico Müller completed the top ten for Audi.
BMW’s Martin Tomczyk failed to make it out of Q1 for the first time so far this season, missing out by just 0.001 seconds, with the former champion joined by Audi’s Edoardo Mortara and Timo Scheider, fellow BMW driver António Félix da Costa and Mercedes’ Vitaly Petrov in exiting the session early on.
Top ten times
| POS | NO | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP | |
| 1 | 12 | Robert WICKENS |  |
FREE MAN’S WORLD AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé | 11 | 47.883 | 0.000 | |
| 2 | 6 | Paul di RESTA |  |
AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé | 14 | 47.976 | 0.093 | |
| 3 | 21 | Jamie GREEN | |
Audi Sport Team Rosberg | Audi RS5 DTM | 12 | 47.995 | 0.112 | |
| 4 | 25 | Pascal WEHRLEIN |  |
gooix AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé | 14 | 48.008 | 0.125 | |
| 5 | 11 | Gary PAFFETT | |
EURONICS AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé | 12 | 48.033 | 0.150 | |
| 6 | 5 | Christian VIETORIS | |
Original-Teile AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé | 12 | 48.033 | 0.150 | |
| 7 | 7 | Mattias EKSTRÖM |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline | Audi RS5 DTM | 12 | 48.079 | 0.196 | |
| 8 | 23 | Marco WITTMANN | |
BMW Team RMG | BMW M4 DTM | 8 | 48.210 | 0.327 | |
| The below times are from Q2: | |||||||||
| 9 | 16 | Adrien TAMBAY |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt | Audi RS5 DTM | 13 | 48.223 | 0.207 | |
| 10 | 22 | Nico MÜLLER |  |
Audi Sport Team Rosberg | Audi RS5 DTM | 13 | 48.235 | 0.219 | |