DTM Red Bull Ring: Jamie Green tops Audi-dominated qualifying
Jamie Green scored his first pole position of 2017 in the Saturday DTM qualifying session at the Red Bull Ring, where five Audi cars finished in the top six
Nico Muller ended up second and points leader Mattias Ekstrom was third.
Ekstrom's nearest championship challenger - Mercedes driver Lucas Auer - qualified down in 12th place.
Qualifying for race one in Austria was the first competitive session since DTM's decision to scrap performance weights, and the best positions for BMW and Mercedes were fourth and seventh respectively.
While BMW's Marco Wittmann was the first to set a competitive time, Mattias Ekstrom and then Green soon took over.
The Briton ended the first half of the session in the lead with a time 1m22.198s, followed by four of his Audi team-mates.
The session continued under the control of the Ingolstadt marque after the halfway point, with Muller taking the lead in the final two minutes.
Green fell 0.004s short with his first improvement but managed to set a best time of 1m21.973s just as the chequered flag fell, beating Muller by 0.021s.
Ekstrom took third, with Wittmann breaking up the Audi hegemony by grabbing fourth, just 0.081s off the pace.
Mike Rockenfeller and Rene Rast completed the top six for Audi, while Robert Wickens finished seventh as the top Mercedes driver.
BMW trio Maxime Martin, Timo Glock and Augusto Farfus rounded out the top 10.
By qualifying third, Ekstrom scored a point and extended his championship advantage over Auer to 10 points.
Race one qualifying results
Pos | Driver | Car | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jamie Green | Audi | 1m21.973s | 12 |
2 | Nico Muller | Audi | 0.021s | 14 |
3 | Mattias Ekstrom | Audi | 0.073s | 13 |
4 | Marco Wittmann | BMW | 0.081s | 11 |
5 | Mike Rockenfeller | Audi | 0.122s | 13 |
6 | Rene Rast | Audi | 0.273s | 12 |
7 | Robert Wickens | Mercedes | 0.319s | 12 |
8 | Maxime Martin | BMW | 0.419s | 12 |
9 | Timo Glock | BMW | 0.468s | 11 |
10 | Augusto Farfus | BMW | 0.469s | 11 |
11 | Paul Di Resta | Mercedes | 0.529s | 14 |
12 | Lucas Auer | Mercedes | 0.558s | 13 |
13 | Bruno Spengler | BMW | 0.559s | 11 |
14 | Edoardo Mortara | Mercedes | 0.581s | 13 |
15 | Gary Paffett | Mercedes | 0.625s | 12 |
16 | Tom Blomqvist | BMW | 0.665s | 12 |
17 | Loic Duval | Audi | 0.738s | 12 |
18 | Maro Engel | Mercedes | 0.932s | 13 |
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