Spengler on Lausitz pole

Having made it into the one-lap shoot-out for pole that is Q4, Spengler was set a tough task by Mattias Ekstrom to knock the Abt Audi driver off the top spot.

But the HWA Mercedes driver made his opponent look ordinary, lapping the circuit in 1m19.119s - almost half a second quicker than the Swede - to seize the initiative.

As Spengler was on his slow-down lap, only his HWA team-mate Jamie Green stood a chance of knocking him off pole, but the Brit came up shy by 0.4s as he completed an all-Mercedes front row for the second time in 2011.

Ekstrom and Phoenix man Martin Tomczyk, the championship's highest-placed Audi driver, will share the second row.

Gary Paffett will start fifth for HWA after being bumped out of a Q4 spot very late by Green's pace-setting lap in Q3, with Oliver Jarvis outqualifying his returning Abt team-mate Tom Kristensen by a place. Filipe Albuquerque will start a career-best eighth in his older Rosberg Audi.

Timo Scheider could only qualify ninth - his worst starting spot of 2011 - although the two-time champion was only 0.2s slower than his team-mate Ekstrom's best time in Q2. Christian Vietoris (Persson Mercedes) completed the top 10, while Q1 pace-setter Edoardo Mortara struggled to 12th in his Rosberg Audi.

So close were the times throughout that anything that was not within 0.4s of Mortara's pace-setting 1m19.297s in the opening part of the qualifying would not be good enough to make Q2.

That proved disastrous for Ralf Schumacher, who lies equal third in the championship. The HWA Mercedes driver could only qualify 17th - just as he did last year - while his team-mate Paffett was heading for a similar fate until popping into the top six with his final effort.

Pos  Driver                Team/Car          Time       Gap
 1.  Bruno Spengler        HWA Mercedes      1m19.119s
 2.  Jamie Green           HWA Mercedes      1m19.524s  + 0.405s
 3.  Mattias Ekstrom       Abt Audi          1m19.591s  + 0.472s
 4.  Martin Tomczyk        Phoenix Audi      1m19.622s  + 0.503s
 5.  Gary Paffett          HWA Mercedes      1m19.151s  (Q3)
 6.  Oliver Jarvis         Abt Audi          1m19.233s  (Q3)
 7.  Tom Kristensen        Abt Audi          1m19.406s  (Q3)
 8.  Filipe Albuquerque    Rosberg Audi      1m19.545s  (Q3)
 9.  Timo Scheider         Abt Audi          1m19.219s  (Q2)
10.  Christian Vietoris    Persson Mercedes  1m19.234s  (Q2)
11.  Miguel Molina         Abt Audi          1m19.258s  (Q2)
12.  Edoardo Mortara       Rosberg Audi      1m19.367s  (Q2)
13.  Renger van der Zande  Persson Mercedes  1m19.502s  (Q2)
14.  Susie Stoddart        Persson Mercedes  1m19.577s  (Q2)
15.  David Coulthard       Mucke Mercedes    1m19.737s  (Q1)
16.  Maro Engel            Mucke Mercedes    1m19.785s  (Q1)
17.  Ralf Schumacher       HWA Mercedes      1m19.818s  (Q1)
18.  Rahel Frey            Phoenix Audi      1m20.370s  (Q1)