Qualifying: Bartels bags Opel's pole

It was close, though. With just two minutes remaining, Holland's Patrick Huisman sat on the top spot, having toppled his Eschmann-Manthey Mercedes team mate Bernd Maylander. But Bartels pulled a great lap out of the bag, however, which no one else could beat.

The session was red flagged with just over nine minutes remaining when the nose section and left-side door of Manuel Reuter parted company, littering the track with debris on the high-speed approach to the first chicane.

The restart gave everyone one last run on new tyres, and Bartels pulled the trigger when it mattered to take top spot by just 0.058s.

"This circuit looks really easy, with all the long straights, but it's not," said Bartels. "From the first set of tyres I had a good feeling. But when I saw P6 starting my final lap, with four tenths to catch up, I wasn't sure I could do it. Then I saw I was four-tenths up coming into the Motordrome [Hockenheim's stadium section] and I still wasn't sure it would be enough. I only found out that it was when I came back to the pits."

Huisman came close to becoming the first Dutchman to score a DTM pole, but missed out despite the slipstream efforts with team mate Maylander.

"We have a good working relationship and we were giving each other as many slipstreams as possible," said Huisman. "We've done it before in the [Porsche] Supercup. It doesn't matter who is in front, as long as we are both near the front of the grid."

Abt Sportsline's Mattias Ekstrom also pulled a rabbit from his trademark cap to grab fourth place on his final lap. The Audis seemed unable to keep the pace on this ultimate power circuit, despite some frantic attempts at slip streaming.

"I could not have done the time without the help of [Audi team mate Martin] Tomczyk," Ekstrom admitted. He was only able to take three runs at qualifying to everyone else's four after a problem in practice ruined two sets of tyres, so fourth place was a real triumph.

Peter Dumbreck, who had looked quick all through free practice, was slightly disappointed to end up fifth, just ahead of champion-elect AMG Mercedes team mate Bernd Schneider.

Alain Menu was the second fastest Opel in seventh and he, along with the following Christian Abt (Audi) and Timo Scheider (Opel), considered they should be a little higher up the pecking order after being quick in practice.

Laurent Aiello (Audi) was a surprisingly distant 11th, this time just 0.007secs slower than Uwe Alzen (Mercedes) in tenth, the pair having been inseparable all weekend. While Aiello has little chance of catching Alzen for second in the points table, he will have his work cut out to fend off Dumbreck for third.

Fortunately for both the Scot and the Frenchman, the third man in this battle is Marcel Fassler, who was only 13th fastest, but the dark horse is Huisman who looks set to score well this weekend.

Tomorrow's qualifying race starts at 14.28 local time (13.28 BST).

For full qualifying results click here.