Kristensen on Nurburgring pole

The storms started in the hour leading up to the evening qualifying session, and the heavy rain eventually made conditions too difficult for the drivers to continue.

The session was red-flagged during the second segment when Mike Rockenfeller crashed and officials decided not to restart the session and to send the 14 cars through to Q3.

But the circuit was deemed too wet to start the session, so the results from Q1 were taken to determine the grid - which, ironically, means Rockenfeller will start from the front row alongside Kristensen.

Discussions took place afterwards regarding the decision to take the Q1 results, but Article 48.5 of the DTM regulations states that if qualifying has to be aborted, then the results of the last completed segment will determine the grid for the race.

Martin Tomczyk will start third ahead of Gary Paffett - who thought he had qualified second until the decision was made to take the Q1 results, rather than taking the positions from the time of the red flag during Q2.

Mattias Ekstrom was one of those to benefit from the decision - he was ninth in Q2 - but he will start fifth based on the Q1 results.

Bernd Schneider completes the top six, while Ralf Schumacher had his best qualifying result of the season with seventh.

The German did survive a minor scare when he overshot the pit entrance at the end of Q1, but as the session was over he performed a quick U-turn and headed for the pits.

Schumacher's teammate Maro Engel will start alongside him in eighth, while championship leader Timo Scheider will start ninth.

Aside from Schneider in sixth, the 2008 Mercedes drivers will have their work cut out during the race. Paul di Resta and Jamie Green are 12th and 13th respectively, while Bruno Spengler had failed to get through to Q2 and will start 16th.

Pos  Driver                 Car        Time         Gap
 1.  Tom Kristensen         Audi       1:38.346
 2.  Mike Rockenfeller      Audi       1:38.495  +0.149
 3.  Martin Tomczyk         Audi       1:38.584  +0.238
 4.  Gary Paffett           Mercedes   1:38.649  +0.303
 5.  Mattias Ekstrom        Audi       1:39.197  +0.851
 6.  Bernd Schneider        Mercedes   1:39.235  +0.889
 7.  Ralf Schumacher        Mercedes   1:39.397  +1.051
 8.  Maro Engel             Mercedes   1:39.462  +1.116
 9.  Timo Scheider          Audi       1:39.520  +1.174
10.  Alexandre Premat       Audi       1:39.551  +1.205
11.  Markus Winkelhock      Audi       1:39.644  +1.298
12.  Paul di Resta          Mercedes   1:39.773  +1.427
13.  Jamie Green            Mercedes   1:39.829  +1.483
14.  Mathias Lauda          Mercedes   1:39.961  +1.615
15.  Susie Stoddart         Mercedes   1:40.367  +2.021
16.  Bruno Spengler         Mercedes   1:40.517  +2.171
17.  Christijan Albers      Audi       1:41.385  +3.039
18.  Oliver Jarvis          Audi       1:41.484  +3.138
19.  Katherine Legge        Audi       1:42.087  +3.740