Maiden DTM pole for Spengler

Spengler left his best lap until the very last second of qualifying to usurp Audi's Tom Kristensen, who thought he'd done enough to nail the top spot.

But Spengler produced a lap of 1:23.462 to wrest pole away by just over a tenth of a second.

"My lap was excellent with no mistakes," said Spengler. "It was very important for me to score my first pole after my first win, so it's a great situation to be in."

Kristensen said: "One the one hand, I'm disappointed, because I heard over the radio that I was on pole.

"But Bruno was quicker, and did a good job, and I was happy enough with my lap. That said, if I was to lose pole in the final second of the session, I'd rather lose it to another Audi driver!"

Championship leader Bernd Schneider will start third for Mercedes, but was fortunate to make it through the knockout stages at all after a grassy off at the hairpin in the opening session.

That moment had a knock-on effect in that it meant he only had one set of tyres for the final session, whereas his rivals had two. Bearing that in mind, he said he was "very happy".

Usual qualifying pace-setter Jamie Green (Mercedes) was down in fourth, quipping that it was a "bad day" for him to be starting from the depths of the second row.

He beat Audi's Mattias Ekstrom by a couple of tenths, but only because the former champion slid wide on the exit of the chicane when he was on a real barnstormer of a lap.

Stefan Mucke led the 2005-spec cars in his Mercedes, ahead of the year-old Audi of Christian Abt, who knocked Mika Hakkinen (AMG Mercedes) out of the final session in the closing moments of the second period.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen's Audi will start eighth, ahead of Hakkinen and Martin Tomczyk (Audi).

Starting grid:

Pos  Driver           Make      Time
 1.  Bruno Spengler   Mercedes  1:23.462
 2.  Tom Kristensen   Audi      1:23.605 + 0.143
 3.  Bernd Schneider  Mercedes  1:23.698 + 0.236
 4.  Jamie Green      Mercedes  1:23.743 + 0.281
 5.  Mattias Ekstrom  Audi      1:23.985 + 0.523
 6.  Stefan Mucke     Mercedes  1:24.105 + 0.643
 7.  Christian Abt    Audi      1:24.302 + 0.840
 8.  H-H.Frentzen     Audi      1:24.308 + 0.846
 9.  Mika Hakkinen    Mercedes  1:24.493 + 1.031
10.  Martin Tomczyk   Audi      1:24.500 + 1.038
11.  A.Margaritis     Mercedes  1:24.546 + 1.084
12.  Daniel La Rosa   Mercedes  1:24.568 + 1.106
13.  Timo Scheider    Audi      1:24.584 + 1.122
14.  Pierre Kaffer    Audi      1:24.947 + 1.485
15.  Jean Alesi       Mercedes  1:25.148 + 1.686
16.  Frank Stippler   Audi      1:25.251 + 1.789
17.  Nicolas Kiesa    Audi      1:25.387 + 1.925
18.  Mathias Lauda    Mercedes  1:25.513 + 2.051
19.  Susie Stoddart   Mercedes  1:25.658 + 2.196
20.  Vanina Ickx      Audi      1:26.371 + 2.909