DTM Lausitzring: Auer holds off charging van der Linde for pole

Auer, who won the opening round of the 2022 season in Portimao and has three DTM victories to his name at the east German track, posted the benchmark time of 1m30.654s in the opening half of the 20-minute session but couldn't improve his time further as others around him closed in.

Van der Linde, who had been 0.25s behind the Austrian at the halfway point in the session, produced two laps less than a tenth slower than Auer but had to settle for second on the grid as the only non-Mercedes driver in the top four.

The South African's late effort demoted Maro Engel to third, the GruppeM Mercedes driver 0.067s slower than stablemate Auer in an ultra-tight session, with Luca Stolz fourth in the leading HRT Mercedes.

Stolz however faces an investigation for crossing the white line at the pit exit.

Felipe Fraga had been third in the closing stages of the session before behind shuffled back to fifth in the Red Bull Ferrari, and will share row with Stolz's team-mate Arjun Maini.

Philipp Eng will line up seventh in the second Schubert BMW, ahead of reigning ADAC GT Masters champion Ricardo Feller in the leading Abt Audi entry.

Top 3 after Qualifying, Sheldon van der Linde, Schubert Motorsport, Pole sitter Lucas Auer, Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD, Maro Engel, Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM Racing

Photo by: DTM

The Swiss set an identical laptime, 1m31.147s, to championship leader Mirko Bortolotti's Grasser Racing Lamborghini but will start ahead courtesy of posting his effort first.

Three-time DTM champion Rene Rast rounded out the top 10, 0.494s down on Auer.

The best Porsche was Dennis Olsen's SSR Performance example in 11th, as Nick Cassidy took 12th on his first appearance of the season in the second Red Bull Ferrari.

Portimao race two winner Nico Muller waited until the final eight minutes of the session to venture out of the pits for the first time, but couldn't repeat Bortolotti's successful adoption of the tactic in Portimao, and could only manage 14th in his Team Rosberg Audi - just behind defending champion Maxi Gotz's Winward Mercedes.

A similar strategy for David Schumacher in the third Winward Mercedes yielded the 17th-quickest time.

DTM Lausitzring - Saturday qualifying results:

Cla	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	Lucas Auer	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'30.654
2	Sheldon Van Der Linde	BMW M4 GT3	1'30.679	0.025
3	Maro Engel	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'30.721	0.067
4	Luca Stolz	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'30.864	0.210
5	Felipe Fraga	Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020	1'30.971	0.317
6	Arjun Maini	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'30.987	0.333
7	Philipp Eng	BMW M4 GT3	1'31.118	0.464
8	Ricardo Feller	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1'31.147	0.493
9	Mirko Bortolotti	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	1'31.147	0.493
10	René Rast	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1'31.148	0.494
11	Dennis Olsen	Porsche 911 GT3 R	1'31.159	0.505
12	Nick Cassidy	Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020	1'31.172	0.518
13	Maximilian Götz	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'31.184	0.530
14	Nico Müller	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1'31.302	0.648
15	Mikael Grenier	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'31.304	0.650
16	Marco Wittmann	BMW M4 GT3	1'31.397	0.743
17	David Schumacher	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'31.437	0.783
18	Maximilian Buhk	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1'31.461	0.807
19	Kelvin van der Linde	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1'31.528	0.874
20	Thomas Preining	Porsche 911 GT3 R	1'31.540	0.886
21	Esteban Muth	BMW M4 GT3	1'31.575	0.921
22	Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche 911 GT3 R	1'31.666	1.012
23	Nicki Thiim	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	1'31.799	1.145
24	Dev Gore	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1'31.806	1.152
25	Marius Zug	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1'31.812	1.158
26	Rolf Ineichen	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	1'32.220	1.566
27	Clemens Schmid	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	1'32.483	1.829
28	Esmee Hawkey	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	1'33.252	2.598
29	Alessio Deledda	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	1'34.366	3.712
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