Scheider takes pole for Audi
Timo Scheider scored the third pole position of his DTM career for Sunday's season opener at Hockenheim
The Audi driver carried his strong pace from practice into Saturday afternoon's session, and it seemed a certainty he would grab pole by the time the eight-man final qualifying session began.
"Qualifying was amazing," said Scheider. "Saturday is the time you have to be on the spot and we were. Today we did a perfect job, we just need to have no incidents in the first few corners and then I think we can do a good race."
Reigning champion Mattias Ekstrom will join Scheider on the front row in another brand new A4 model, while Mercedes have a lockout of the second row of the grid.
Audis had taken the top four places in the first qualifying session, but Bruno Spengler and Paul di Resta were able to get themselves in the hunt when it mattered.
Mercedes still have reason to be concerned though, as despite preventing the new Audis from completely dominating the front of the grid, Spengler and di Resta were four tenths of a second behind Scheider.
Tom Kristensen and Jamie Green make up the third row, while Martin Tomczyk had to settle for seventh after a disappointing final run.
Oliver Jarvis was one of the heroes of qualifying, as he was the only driver to get into the top-eight shoot-out in a one-year-old car. The Audi rookie narrowly beat five-time DTM champion Bernd Schneider to the slot.
Gary Paffett was the top one-year-old Mercedes driver in 10th, while further down the field Ralf Schumacher was eliminated in the opening segment of his first DTM qualifying session.
The German appeared to have done enough to get through to the second session with a late lap, but better efforts from Christijan Albers, Alexandre Premat and Jarvis pushed him down to 15th on the grid.
Pos Driver Car Time 1. Timo Scheider Audi 1:32.655 2. Mattias Ekstrom Audi 1:32.804 + 0.149 3. Bruno Spengler Mercedes 1:33.034 + 0.379 4. Paul Di Resta Mercedes 1:33.075 + 0.420 5. Tom Kristensen Audi 1:33.169 + 0.514 6. Jamie Green Mercedes 1:33.418 + 0.763 7. Martin Tomczyk Audi 1:33.575 + 0.920 8. Oliver Jarvis Audi 1:33.716 + 1.061 9. Bernd Schneider Mercedes 1:33.731 + 1.076 10. Gary Paffett Mercedes 1:33.891 + 1.236 11. Alexandre Premat Audi 1:33.893 + 1.238 12. Mike Rockenfeller Audi 1:33.991 + 1.336 13. Markus Winkelhock Audi 1:34.096 + 1.441 14. Christijan Albers Audi 1:35.299 + 2.644 15. Ralf Schumacher Mercedes 1:34.425 + 1.770 16. Maro Engel Mercedes 1:34.458 + 1.803 17. Susie Stoddart Mercedes 1:34.574 + 1.919 18. Mathias Lauda Mercedes 1:34.725 + 2.070 19. Katherine Legge Audi 1:35.784 + 3.129
Audi dominate practice at Hockenheim
Mercedes satisfied with qualifying
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