Audi’s Miguel Molina took pole position in qualifying for the final Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters race of the season at the Hockenheimring, as Audi finished in the top three positions with Mattias Ekström second and Edoardo Mortara in third.
Phoenix Audi’s Molina pulled out all the stops on his final lap in Q3 to go fastest, with Abt Sportsline Audi’s Ekström unable to respond to Molina, ending the session just 0.016 seconds behind Molina. It is the Spaniard’s first pole position since the season finale in 2011, excluding Molina’s disallowed pole at Oschersleben earlier this year.
Abt Audi’s Mortara was third fastest, having steadily improved throughout qualifying to score his second-best qualifying result of the season.
BMW Team RBM’s Augusto Farfus was ‘the best of the rest’ in fourth, ahead of Mercedes’ Pascal Wehrlein in fifth. Wehrlein had been the best of the Mercedes drivers throughout the session. Jamie Green was fifth fastest for Audi Sport Team Rosberg, marking a fifth consecutive Q3 appearance for the Brit.
Completing the Q3 times were Phoenix Audi duo Mike Rockenfeller and Timo Scheider in seventh and eighth, who ensure there were six Audis in the top eight as the marque tries to close the 21-point gap to BMW in the manufacturers’ standings.
BMW’s António Félix da Costa and Mercedes’ Paul di Resta completed the top ten, with the former missing out on entry into Q3 by a mere 0.013 seconds. Di Resta had even briefly been fastest in Q1, having shown strong pace throughout.
Audi drivers failing to make it into the top ten were Abt’s Adrien Tambay (11th), who was on pole at the Hockenheimring at the first meeting of the year, and Rosberg Audi’s Nico Müller (18th).
Although Mercedes brought seven of its new-spec C-Coupé’s to Hockenheim, only two made it into the top ten. Robert Wickens qualified in 12th, whilst the experienced Gary Paffett and youngster Daniel Juncadella were 16th and 17th respectively. Neither Christian Vietoris nor Vitaly Petrov made it out of Q1 and qualified in 22nd and 23rd positions respectively.
Top ten times
| POS | NO | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP | |
| 1 | 8 | Miguel MOLINA |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline | Audi RS5 DTM | 5 | 1:33.316 | ||
| 2 | 7 | Mattias EKSTRÖM |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline | Audi RS5 DTM | 8 | 1:33.332 | 0.016 | |
| 3 | 15 | Edoardo MORTARA |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt | Audi RS5 DTM | 5 | 1:33.406 | 0.090 | |
| 4 | 3 | Augusto FARFUS |  |
BMW Team RBM | BMW M4 DTM | 3 | 1:33.460 | 0.144 | |
| 5 | 21 | Jamie GREEN |  |
Audi Sport Team Rosberg | Audi RS5 DTM | 4 | 1:33.480 | 0.164 | |
| 6 | 25 | Pascal WEHRLEIN |  |
gooix AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé | 5 | 1:33.483 | 0.167 | |
| 7 | 1 | Mike ROCKENFELLER | |
Audi Sport Team Phoenix | Audi RS5 DTM | 5 | 1:33.588 | 0.272 | |
| 8 | 2 | Timo SCHEIDER | |
Audi Sport Team Phoenix | Audi RS5 DTM | 7 | 1:33.650 | 0.334 | |
| The below times are from Q2: | |||||||||
| 9 | 18 | António Félix da COSTA |  |
BMW Team MTEK | BMW M4 DTM | 8 | 1:33.381 | 0.209 | |
| 10 | 6 | Paul di RESTA | |
AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé | 6 | 1:33.468 | 0.296 | |