Kristensen takes pole at Le Mans
Eight-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Tom Kristensen took pole position for the DTM race on the shorter Bugatti version of the French track this afternoon
The Audi driver set his best lap on his first run in the crucial third segment of qualifying and held on to the top spot as the rest of the field struggled to make up time with their second set of tyres.
One man who did improve was Jamie Green, who joins Kristensen on the front row for Sunday's race.
Reigning champion Mattias Ekstrom will start third, just ahead of Paul di Resta. The Scot had a relatively quiet session, but crucially he starts ahead of championship leader Timo Scheider who is fifth.
Di Resta was made to sweat a bit in Q2, as his mechanics pushed his car into the garage with two minutes of the session remaining. He was sixth at the time and by no means guaranteed a slot in Q3, but to knock him out of the session Audi needed some of their 2007 cars to get ahead of him, which they failed to do.
Bernd Schneider and Bruno Spengler are next up for Mercedes, ahead of Martin Tomczyk, as the 2008-spec cars had the final session all to themselves.
Mike Rockenfeller was best of the rest in his 2007 Audi, just ahead of Oliver Jarvis, Alexandre Premat, and Markus Winkelhock in similar machinery.
Pos Driver Car Time Gap 1. Tom Kristensen Audi 1:30.149 2. Jamie Green Mercedes 1:30.229 +0.080 3. Mattias Ekstrom Audi 1:30.245 +0.096 4. Paul di Resta Mercedes 1:30.379 +0.230 5. Timo Scheider Audi 1:30.545 +0.396 6. Bernd Schneider Mercedes 1:30.619 +0.470 7. Bruno Spengler Mercedes 1:30.765 +0.616 8. Martin Tomczyk Audi 1:31.181 +1.032 9. Mike Rockenfeller Audi 1:31.030 +0.881 10. Oliver Jarvis Audi 1:31.170 +1.021 11. Alexandre Premat Audi 1:31.422 +1.273 12. Markus Winkelhock Audi 1:31.438 +1.289 13. Maro Engel Mercedes 1:31.473 +1.324 14. Christijan Albers Audi 1:31.585 +1.436 15. Susie Stoddart Mercedes 1:32.029 +1.880 16. Gary Paffett Mercedes 1:32.276 +2.127 17. Katherine Legge Audi 1:32.410 +2.261 18. Mathias Lauda Mercedes 1:32.722 +2.573 19. Ralf Schumacher Mercedes 1:33.221 +3.072
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments