Norisring DTM: Lawson beats van der Linde to Saturday pole

The result means AF Corse driver Lawson will head to Saturday’s opening race with a 15-point advantage over the Abt Sportsline Audi of van der Linde, albeit with 18kg of ballast on his Ferrari.

The laptimes tumbled rapidly around the short 2.6km circuit in Nuremberg as the session progressed, helped by drivers being able to complete multiple flying laps on a single set of tyres.

Van der Linde was the first driver to break the 50s barrier in qualifying with a time of 49.647s, before improving further to a 49.255s, setting the fastest lap of the weekend in the process.

But the South African’s position at the top of the timesheets proved to be short-lived as Lawson began setting a series of quick times, moving the goalposts with a 48.966s flyer.

The next driver to go on top was GetSpeed Mercedes’ Arjun Maini, edging out Lawson by just 0.021s to claim provisional pole after the first runs.

When the drivers returned on track in the final five minutes of the session, Lawson wasted little time to snatch the top spot back from Maini, setting a time of 48.903s on his first flying lap.

The Kiwi then moved himself out of reach of his opponents with a 48.766s, before finding yet more time on his final flyer to seal his third pole position.

Lawson’s title rival van der Linde did improve to second with a last-gasp effort of his own, but ended a sizeable 0.184s adrift of the Red Bull junior’s best time of 48.720s.

Winward driver Lucas Auer led a train of Mercedes cars in third, a further 0.027s adrift of a front-row start, as Maini finished fourth after failing to improve his previous benchmark in his final run.HRT’s Maximilian Gotz, who is still in contention for the title, was classified fifth with a time of 48.960s, beating fellow Mercedes runners Philip Ellis (Winward) and Daniel Juncadella (GruppeM).

Contesting his first DTM race of the season as a replacement for Alex Albon, Super Formula and SUPER GT champion Nick Cassidy posted a time of 49.038s to qualify an impressive eighth in the AF Corse Ferrari.

The top 10 was rounded out by Nico Muller in the Team Rosberg Audi and T3 Motorsport Lamborghini driver Esteban Muth.

Two-time DTM champion Marco Wittmann’s woes continued as he qualified on the last row of the grid in 19th, beating only the second Team Rosberg Audi of Dev Gore.

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	30	Liam Lawson	Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020	48.720
2	3	Kelvin van der Linde	Audi R8 LMS Evo	48.904	0.184
3	22	Lucas Auer	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	48.931	0.211
4	36	Arjun Maini	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	48.938	0.218
5	4	Maximilian Götz	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	48.960	0.240
6	57	Philip Ellis	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	48.986	0.266
7	8	Daniel Juncadella	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	49.024	0.304
8	23	Nick Cassidy	Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020	49.038	0.318
9	51	Nico Müller	Audi R8 LMS Evo	49.189	0.469
10	10	Esteban Muth	BMW M6 GT3	49.251	0.531
11	5	Vincent Abril	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	49.270	0.550
12	9	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi R8 LMS Evo	49.291	0.571
13	37	Lucas di Grassi	Audi R8 LMS Evo	49.292	0.572
14	18	Maximilian Buhk	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	49.292	0.572
15	99	Sophia Flörsch	Audi R8 LMS Evo	49.444	0.724
16	16	Timo Glock	BMW M6 GT3	49.472	0.752
17	31	Sheldon Van Der Linde	BMW M6 GT3	49.487	0.767
18	26	Esmee Hawkey	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	49.517	0.797
19	11	Marco Wittmann	BMW M6 GT3	49.568	0.848
20	12	Dev Gore	Audi R8 LMS Evo	49.753	1.033
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