Tomczyk leads Audi 1-2-3 in Spain
Audi kept Tom Kristensen's DTM title hopes alive by annexing the top three places on the grid for Sunday's eighth round at Barcelona in Spain
But his big championship rival, Mercedes' Bernd Schneider, will start right behind Kristensen in fourth - and they had a big argument after the session!
Martin Tomczyk scored the fourth pole of his career, just pipping Abt Audi teammate Heinz-Harald Frentzen by 0.067 seconds in wet but drying weather conditions.
"I didn't expect this," said Tomczyk. "The result showed we got it right when it mattered."
Frentzen added: "It's been a good weekend so far, and we found some good consistency in the conditions."
Kristensen and Schneider will line up on row two, and even found time in the seven-minute final qualifying session to run close to each other on track, which led to an off-track spat between them.
Schneider felt Kristensen balked him on his out lap, which "was the reason I didn't go quicker", whereas TK countered he was further ahead of him than Bruno Spengler was in the previous qualifying at Zandvoort, telling Schneider: "I was more than 30-metres ahead of you; there's no need to complain about it."
Mika Hakkinen will start fifth in the second AMG Mercedes, ahead of Mattias Ekstrom (Audi), Frank Stippler (Audi) and Alexandros Margaritis (Mercedes).
Usual qualifying pacesetter Jamie Green will start a lowly 13th in his Mercedes, while teammate Bruno Spengler, who can still win the championship, will start 19th after being knocked out in the first qualifying session.
"It was disappointing," said Spengler. "I did a few mistakes and got a lot of traffic."
Strangely enough, one car that appeared to impede him was title rival Schneider... It seems the gloves are coming off.
Super Pole: Pos Driver Car Time 1. Martin Tomczyk Audi A4 1:13.900 2. H.H. Frentzen Audi A4 1:13.967 + 0.067 3. Tom Kristensen Audi A4 1:14.064 + 0.164 4. Bernd Schneider AMG Mercedes C-Klasse 1:14.132 + 0.232 5. Mika Hakkinen AMG Mercedes C-Klasse 1:14.157 + 0.257 6. Mattias Ekstrom Audi A4 1:14.266 + 0.366 7. Frank Stippler Audi A4 1:14.308 + 0.408 8. A. Margaritis AMG Mercedes C-Klasse 1:14.883 + 0.983 Second session: Pos Driver Car Time 9. Timo Scheider Audi A4 1:14.686 10. Mathias Lauda AMG Mercedes C-Klasse 1:14.750 + 0.064 11. Jean Alesi AMG Mercedes C-Klasse 1:14.882 + 0.196 12. Pierre Kaffer Audi A4 1:15.006 + 0.320 13. Jamie Green AMG Mercedes C-Klasse 1:15.057 + 0.371 14. Vanina Ickx Audi A4 1:15.278 + 0.592 First session: Pos Driver Car Time 15. Nicolas Kiesa Audi A4 1:15.167 16. Christian Abt Audi A4 1:15.263 + 0.096 17. Daniel La Rosa AMG Mercedes C-Klasse 1:15.266 + 0.099 18. Stefan Mucke AMG Mercedes C-Klasse 1:15.277 + 0.110 19. Bruno Spengler AMG Mercedes C-Klasse 1:15.324 + 0.157 20. Susie Stoddart AMG Mercedes C-Klasse 1:15.407 + 0.240
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