Lausitzring DTM: Pascal Wehrlein secures maiden pole for Mercedes

After foggy conditions caused practice to be scrapped and replaced by a 15-minute warm-up, the qualifying format also had an unscheduled shake-up.

Q1 was abandoned five minutes in when Joey Hand beached himself in the gravel, with a 20-minute combined Q1 and Q2 taking place instead, before the top eight fought it out for pole as usual.

The last minute format change was no problem for Wehrlein, however, with the Mercedes driver going third fastest in the combined long session, before storming to pole with a 1m17.547s just over two minutes from the end of Q3.

It is the 19-year-old's first pole position, his previous best qualifying position being fourth at the Norisring earlier this season.

"It feels great," he said. "It was really hard today, the conditions were very tricky. We just put it all together. I had a very good lap, and I'm really proud."

Mattias Ekstrom did his best to keep the title fight alive by grabbing second on the grid with two minutes to go, while his Audi stablemate Jamie Green improved even later to grab third.

Those late improvements shuffled Timo Scheider back to fourth, making it three Audis in the top four.

Daniel Juncadella was fifth fastest; the Mercedes driver not only making it into Q3 for the second race in succession, but also improving on his best ever grid spot, following his sixth place at the Nurburgring last time out.

Runaway points leader Marco Wittmann was seventh and the only BMW driver to make it into Q3, ahead of Gary Paffett.

"So and so, I would say," said Wittmann, who can wrap up the title by finishing fourth or better in Sunday's race.

"For us it was a difficult day. Today, it didn't really help us not having a long free practice.

"In the end we can be quite happy with P7, especially if you consider the performance weight we have."

Timo Glock, meanwhile, was the second-best BMW in ninth, just missing out on a Q3 berth despite being fastest with just over six minutes of the long session remaining.

One of the surprises of the session was Vitaly Petrov. The Russian had sat inside the top eight in the combined first session, but slipped to 14th by the end of it.

It is, however, his best grid position of his short DTM career, with the Mercedes driver having been in the bottom five in every session so far this season.

At the back end of the grid, Antonio Felix da Costa, Nico Muller, Martin Tomczyk, and Paul di Resta filled the traditional Q1 exit spots in positions 19th to 22nd, while Joey Hand will start dead last thanks to his spin, which prohibited him from taking part in the combined Q1/Q2.

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Pos  Driver                  Team/Car        Time       Gap
 1.  Pascal Wehrlein         HWA Mercedes    1m17.547s
 2.  Mattias Ekstrom         Abt Audi        1m17.604s  +0.057s
 3.  Jamie Green             Rosberg Audi    1m17.715s  +0.168s
 4.  Timo Scheider           Phoenix Audi    1m17.761s  +0.214s
 5.  Daniel Juncadella       Mucke Mercedes  1m17.779s  +0.232s
 6.  Miguel Molina           Abt Audi        1m17.786s  +0.239s
 7.  Marco Wittmann          RMG BMW         1m18.143s  +0.596s
 8.  Gary Paffett            HWA Mercedes    1m18.291s  +0.744s
 9.  Timo Glock              MTEK BMW        1m18.141s  Q1/Q2
10.  Mike Rockenfeller       Phoenix Audi    1m18.150s  Q1/Q2
11.  Christian Vietoris      HWA Mercedes    1m18.202s  Q1/Q2
12.  Robert Wickens          HWA Mercedes    1m18.250s  Q1/Q2
13.  Edoardo Mortara         Abt Audi        1m18.299s  Q1/Q2
14.  Vitaly Petrov           Mucke Mercedes  1m18.314s  Q1/Q2
15.  Augusto Farfus          RBM BMW         1m18.343s  Q1/Q2
16.  Maxime Martin           RMG BMW         1m18.375s  Q1/Q2
17.  Bruno Spengler          Schnitzer BMW   1m18.416s  Q1/Q2
18.  Adrien Tambay           Abt Audi        1m18.467s  Q1/Q2
19.  Antonio Felix da Costa  MTEK BMW        1m18.491s  Q1/Q2
20.  Nico Muller             Rosberg Audi    1m18.591s  Q1/Q2
21.  Martin Tomczyk          Schnitzer BMW   1m18.629s  Q1/Q2
22.  Paul di Resta           HWA Mercedes    1m18.699s  Q1/Q2
23.  Joey Hand               RBM BMW                    Q1/Q2