Schneider takes 25th career pole
Bernd Schneider took the 25th pole position of his DTM career in a thrilling climax to qualifying at Barcelona
The 44-year-old knocked championship leader Timo Scheider off the top spot in the dying seconds of the session, as several cars improved with their final laps in the crucial third segment of qualifying.
"I was confident going into the session, but I didn't expect to get pole," said Schneider, who last qualified on pole at Zandvoort in 2005.
"My problem has been doing the laptime when the tyres are new, but it wasn't a problem here because I did it on my third lap.
"That's unusual, but also something special. I was surprised though, because I didn't think the lap would be enough (for pole)."
Scheider was satisfied with second, as all three of his championship rivals will be starting behind him.
"It's not bad to be P2 behind Bernd," said the Audi driver. "Paul (di Resta), Jamie (Green) and Mattias (Ekstrom) are all behind and that is good for me, so to be on the front row is ok."
Di Resta is the closest of Scheider's challengers for tomorrow's race, as the Scot jumped up to third with his final lap. He was slightly disappointed though, as he set the fastest time of all in the second segment of the session.
"It's good to be third, but it is disappointing that I did my best time in Q2," he said. "I didn't put a lap together in Q3 though - I didn't do my job properly.
"We've got stronger over the weekend though, and I'm sure that will continue to be the case, so we'll be stronger tomorrow as well."
Last year's pole-sitter Martin Tomczyk seemed set to cause a problem for Mercedes by putting his Audi towards the front of the field, but he eventually had to settle for fourth, just ahead of Green.
Reigning champion Mattias Ekstrom is the last of the title challengers in sixth place, while newly-crowned Le Mans Series champions Mike Rockenfeller and Alexandre Premat both got themselves into the top eight shootout in their 2007-spec A4s.
Their places came at the expense of the 2008 cars of Tom Kristensen and Bruno Spengler, who will complete the top 10, with Kristensen in particular very upset with traffic that prevented him from repeating the strong form he had shown in practice this weekend.
Pos Driver Car Time Gap 1. Bernd Schneider Mercedes 1:07.248 2. Timo Scheider Audi 1:07.279 +0.031 3. Paul di Resta Mercedes 1:07.305 +0.057 4. Martin Tomczyk Audi 1:07.346 +0.098 5. Jamie Green Mercedes 1:07.384 +0.136 6. Mattias Ekstrom Audi 1:07.404 +0.156 7. Mike Rockenfeller Audi 1:07.494 +0.246 8. Alexandre Premat Audi 1:07.583 +0.335 9. Tom Kristensen Audi 1:07.551 +0.303 10. Bruno Spengler Mercedes 1:07.564 +0.316 11. Oliver Jarvis Audi 1:07.709 +0.461 12. Christijan Albers Audi 1:07.893 +0.645 13. Gary Paffett Mercedes 1:07.924 +0.676 14. Markus Winkelhock Audi 1:07.929 +0.681 15. Maro Engel Mercedes 1:08.183 +0.935 16. Mathias Lauda Mercedes 1:08.390 +1.142 17. Ralf Schumacher Mercedes 1:08.408 +1.160 18. Susie Stoddart Mercedes 1:08.435 +1.187 19. Katherine Legge Audi 1:08.846 +1.598
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