Qual: Paffett's pole

After dominating the pre-qualifying session, Ekstrom found the track had changed for the worst when it came to his Super Pole lap. First to go Abt held pole for much of the session on 1m24.173s, with five cars unable to better his time until Paffett lapped in 1m23.756s.

Even he didn't think that was good enough for pole, but neither the following Tom Kristensen (Audi) or Bernd Schneider (Mercedes) could do better. Last to go, Ekstrom failed to beat Paffett by 0.306secs but will start second, ahead of Abt, Dumbreck (despite a huge lock-up at Turn 1) and Christijan Albers (Mercedes).

"It was a good lap, with no mistakes, but I thought it was only good enough for third or fourth," said Paffett. "The circuit just wasn't as grippy as it was before, so it must have been a good lap!"

Ekstrom said: "I didn't really make any mistakes, but there just wasn't as much grip as before. For sure, I'm disappointed but to match the performance he [Paffett] had just wasn't possible."

Dumbreck said: "Despite the fact I locked up it was still a good first sector time. I gave it everything, so it's a shame I just missed out on third by five-thousandths."

Marcel Fassler will start sixth for Opel, ahead of team-mate Timo Scheider (Opel), Schneider, Kristensen and Martin Tomczyk, who spun his Audi in the Bit Kurve.