Martin Tomczyk praying for rain at Oschersleben after tough qualifying

The DTM championship leader could only manage 14th on the grid in his Phoenix Audi while HWA Mercedes driver Bruno Spengler - who trails him by just a point with three races to go - is on the front row.

Although most local forecasts predict rain during the morning and a dry afternoon, a wet race is a possibility. And after dominating in horrible conditions at Spielberg and Brands Hatch, Tomczyk believes that a downpour is his only chance of victory this weekend.

"It's not a great circuit for overtaking places, and from where I am it will be very difficult to score points," Tomczyk told AUTOSPORT. "Maybe I can make up five or six places if we get the strategy perfect, but even then it's only one point.

"But there is a prediction for rain, and this I am praying for, because it's my only chance to get to the front.

"The positive thing is that Miguel [Molina] and Olly [Jarvis] are at the front of the grid and they both really want to win, so maybe they can limit the points Bruno gets. I hope so.

Tomczyk blamed the set-up of his car for his worst qualifying performance in over a year and says a strong warm-up session is needed to see if further changes have worked.

"We changed the set-up after practice and going into qualifying, and it was just a lot worse," he added. "We've never been so far off. It's all getting very close in the championship and it's just the wrong time for it to happen.

"We'll make it better in warm-up, I'm sure, but we'll just have to see how it goes in the race."