René Rast believed he extracted maximum performance en route to his fifth pole position of the 2019 DTM season, and his first at Brands Hatch. The Audi Sport Team Rosberg driver beating Audi Sport Team Phoenix’s Loïc Duval by 0.298 seconds as Audi locked out the top eight positions with unprecedented qualifying dominance.
The 2017 champion went fastest in the first five minutes of the session, and went on to improve with a sensational lap in the final minute, his time of 1 minute 15.134 second the fastest lap of the weekend.
“Today I am very happy,” explained Rast, “the lap felt great, the car felt great and the gap to the followers is quite big.
“I think my lap was quite nice, it’s always nice to take pole position and three points in the championship.”
Rast topped what was an exceptional qualifying for the Audi teams, and despite BMW only getting one car into the top ten, courtesy of Philipp Eng from Team RMR, Rast was aware of the rival marques race pace.
“The BMW’s didn’t look that strong, but for sure they will be in the race.”
In the Saturday race Rast was unable to get the better of BMW Team RMG’s Marco Wittmann, and even though the Audi driver decimated a five second lead in the final three laps, he was unable to pass before the checkered flag.
The 32 year old set the fastest DTM lap at Brands Hatch, and is confident that his lap was the absolute best he could achieve in his Audi RS5 Turbo.
“Sometimes you’re on pole and you feel like something’s left in it,” described the Audi driver, “But today I didn’t get that experience, I extracted everything.”
Race two starts at 14:30 CEST (13:30 BST)