Marco Wittmann has hailed his BMW M4 DTM as being ‘perfect’ after the current championship leader took pole position at the Nürburgring, ahead of a quintet of Audi drivers.
German Wittmann continued his relentless march towards the title, scoring his third pole position of the season in a changeable qualifying session.
In the end the 24-year-old was relatively unchallenged in the session, despite carrying 10 kg of ballast for BMW’s historic 1-2-3-4 result in Austria and being the only BMW driver who made it through to Q3.
“That really was a very good qualifying – and it went far better than I could ever have expected with ten kilograms of ballast on board,” admitted Wittmann, who has already won three times in 2014. “My car was perfect in the second qualifying session, and was also great to drive in Q3.
“To start from pole here at the Nürburgring, at BMW Team RMG’s home race, is fantastic. The team did a great job and made crucial improvements to the car between free practice and qualifying. The goal for tomorrow has to be to get off to a good start and keep the Audi drivers behind me. If I do that, then a good result is possible.”
Wittmann also dedicated his strong result to Schnitzer Motorsport’s late Dieter Lamm, who died just over a week ago.
“In memory of the late Dieter Lamm, we wanted to give his family a small gift in the form of a good result here,” said Wittmann. “We have done that, and I am now looking forward to tomorrow’s race.”
BMW’s Motorsport Director Jens Marquardt says that the manufacturer is not pleased with the reest of Saturday’s qualifying result, with the second-best BMW driver being Maxime Martin down in 12th position.
“We are obviously not happy with the rest of the results,” said Marquardt. “The conditions were unsettled and difficult, and one or two of our cars could definitely have been further up the grid. We will have to sit down in private and analyse our overall performance.”
Sunday’s race takes place at 13:33 CEST (12:33 BST).