Germany MotoGP, Zandvoort DTM, Vila Real WTCC

Good morning and welcome to AUTOSPORT Race Centre Live - where over the next four-and-a-bit hours we'll be bringing you as-it-happens coverage of the Sachsenring MotoGP race day, the DTM at Zandvoort and the first Vila Real World Touring Car Championship race.

We'll also bring you up to speed with the NASCAR and IndyCar events from the European night time, plus having paddock news from Formula Renault 3.5 and the European Le Mans Series at the Red Bull Ring and European Formula 3 at Zandvoort.

Andrea Locatelli, Moto3, Sachsenring 2015

ELMS - Red Bull Ring: Qualifying for today's Red Bull Ring 4 Hours is already over and done with. Tincknell took pole in the Jota Sport Gibson-Nissan, lapping 0.341s faster than Nathanael Berthon in the Murphy Prototypes ORECA.

On only its third appearance, the BR Engineering BR01 qualified third in the hands of Aleshin, just ahead of the TDS ORECA of Gommendy.

The Greaves Gibson, usually a pole threat, ended up down in eighth after Hirsch shunted at Turn 1, bringing out a red flag with five minutes remaining. That potentially had a say in the pole fight as it forced Berthon to abort a lap that might have been quick enough for pole.

Robertson was fastest in the LMP3 class, currently populated exclusively by Ginettas, for Team LNT.

AF Corse Ferraris took pole in both LM GTE and GTC, with Griffin on pole in the former and Castellacci in the latter.

Jota, Red Bull Ring ELMS 2015

DTM - Zandvoort: Goedemorgen from Zandvoort. While MotoGP is in the series' heartland, the DTM is just over the boarder in the seaside Dutch town.

It's been a fine weekend for BMW so far. The brand dominated practice and qualifying, and then took a record sweep of the top seven in yesterday afternoon's 40-minute race.

The previous best is all-top six finishes for Audi at Valencia in 2011 and Mercedes at Hockenheim in 2001 and Barcelona in 2007.

Marco Wittmann led the way, denying Antonio Felix da Costa his maiden victory.

Marco Wittmann wins in all-BMW top seven

Moto3 - Sachsenring: Riders slowing down on the racing line looking for tows in qualifying has been a hot topic in the world championship classes all season, and this weekend Race Direction has decided enough is enough.

The Moto3 pack has been particularly hammered by penalties, with three-place drops for title contender and second-place qualifier Enea Bastianini, Maria Herrera, Jorge Navarro, Andrea Migno, John McPhee, Ana Carrasco, Niki Ajo, Isaac Vinales, Andrea Locatelli, Hiroki Ono and Jakob Kornfeil.

That's a lot of penalties.

Runaway championship leader Danny Kent took pole, but it wasn't a totally smooth session for Leopard (pronounced Lee-o-pard, by the way) Racing's Brit. He made one of his only mistakes of the year so far by falling and collecting local wildcard Max Kappler.

Both were unhurt and it didn't stop Kent wrapping up another pole.

This is the grid we've ended up with:

1 Danny Kent
2 Karel Hanika
3 Fabio Quartararo
4 Efren Vazquez
5 Enea Bastianini
6 Jorge Martin
7 Niccolo Antonelli
8 Brad Binder
9 Andrea Locatelli
10 Alexis Masbou
11 Jorge Navarro
12 Romano Fenati

One major contender missing: Ajo rider Miguel Oliveira, who has taken a couple of brilliant wins this year including last time out at Assen, needed hand surgery after a Friday crash and is out.

DTM - Zandvoort: There's been a change in weather overnight, today is a bit cooler and more overcast than the warm and sunny Friday and Saturday, befitting the beach over the road. And the sand dunes these spectators (with varying levels of sunburn) were watching from.

There is also a threat of rain, we had some light showers overnight and a couple of drops fell at the conclusion of the morning warm-up.

Edoardo Mortara topped that session for Audi, with Gary Paffett second, Saturday polesitter Augusto Farfus third and yesterday's winner Wittmann in 11th. Mattias Ekstrom's Audi crawled to a halt on his outlap.

Paffett and Audi Jamie Green were running inside the top seven yesterday, but both fell off the road while running fifth and sixth.

Can they, or anyone else, challenge BMW today? We'll find out over the coming hours. Qualifying starts at 10:35 BST, and the race at 13:10 BST.

Moto3 - Sachsenring: Red Bull protege Hanika jumps into the lead off the line, Vazquez beats team-mate Kent into the first corner too, with Bastianini already up to fourth.

Teenage rising superstar Quartararo has been elbowed back a bit, he's seventh.

Japanese rider Hikoki Ono is our first crasher already.

And that didn't take long - Kent slices past both Hanika and Vazquez into Turn 12 and is into the lead...

...but not for long, here comes Bastianini as they complete the first lap.

Moto3 already being thoroughly Moto3-ish. Good stuff.

Moto3 - Sachsenring: Kent retakes the lead from Bastianini within half a lap, then Brad Binder comes through to pass both, before Kent hacks his way back into the lead by the time they begin the lap three - and now he's starting to pull out a bit of a gap. Binder and Bastianini really, really do not want him to escape.

Moto3 - Sachsenring: Kent had just managed to get a half-second lead (that's a lot in Moto3) when a little slide cost him some momentum.

Now he's got Vazquez, Bastianini and Binder back on his tail and has to do it again.

Kent did manage to make a break and just dominant at Austin and Termas de Rio Hondo earlier in the year, but normally Moto3 goes right down to the finish line.

Moto3 - Sachsenring: The two Leopards seem to have worked together to escape - it's now Kent versus Vazquez up front and they've got a big cushion over a Bastianini/Binder/Hanika/Antontelli/Martin scrap for third.

NASCAR - Kentucky: The Sprint Cup's 'win a race, get in the Chase' system isn't quite that simple if you break a leg at the start of the season and miss 11 rounds, as Kyle Busch is finding.

Chase contenders are supposed to have contested the full season - that's a sensible rule to stop someone turning up for one race, winning it and then being a title contender without any need to do the other 25 pre-Chase races - but Busch has been given dispensation to make the the title shootout as long as he can get into the top 30 in the points by the cut-off point at Richmond.

Even after he won at Sonoma, Busch's hopes still looked fairly remote given the points deficit and how tight the scoring system is. He initially said he'd try to be consistent, but after a tough Daytona race that didn't look like it would be enough.

So he's going to try cranking out wins instead - and he took another at Kentucky last night, in a race where NASCAR's aero changes to improve the quality of racing at medium-sized ovals seemed to pay off.

Here's the full story:

Kentucky NASCAR: Kyle Busch takes second win in three races

Kyle Busch wins Kentucky NASCAR 2015

Moto3 - Sachsenring: Barring a problem or a miracle, Kent has got this covered. We're not even quite halfway and he's broken Vazquez's challenge and opened a 3s lead.

Vazquez is pretty lonely too, so for fun and thrills thank goodness for the third place battle - which right now is Antontelli vs Binder vs Bastianini vs Navarro vs Hanika vs Masbou vs Martin vs Fenati vs Oettl vs Locatelli vs Ajo.

Moto3 - Sachsenring: Kent's lead is up to 5s with 10 laps left. Can he make it his biggest winning margin of the year so far? He won by 8s and 10s at Austin and Termas de Rio Hondo.

To put that firmly in perspective, the biggest winning margin in the five races since then is 0.122s. The rest have all been won by hundredths.

Moto3 - Sachsenring: Meanwhile, for third place, Bastianini, Antontelli and Binder are going three abreast towards the first corner with another eight riders within about a second of them.

Moto3 - Sachsenring: Kent's lead is approaching 8s with six laps left.

Antontelli holds the advantage in the fight for third right now, after a brief cameo at the front of the queue from veteran Masbou.

DTM - Zandvoort: The 20-minute qualifying session is underway. Temperatures are about 5C air and 10C track cooler than yesterday, and the clouds have rolled back in, so banking a lap early could well prove vital.

After its electrical problem in the warm-up, Ekstrom's Audi is back in action.

Moto3 - Sachsenring: Vazquez needs to stay awake with three laps left - the now-Fenati-led third place group is less than 3s behind him.

Kent's lead has passed the 8s mark.

Moto3 - Sachsenring: Onto the last lap, Kent and Vazquez have a Leopard one-two sorted, it's Fenati in third for Valentino Rossi's VR46 team right now but he still has eight rivals trying to steal that podium off him.

DTM - Zandvoort: Championship leader Green, who spun out of yesterday's race while running sixth is on top at the moment, ahead of Blomqvist and Wehrlein. About half of the field has logged a time.

DTM - Zandvoort: 1-2 in yesterday's race, Wittmann and da Costa have just moved up to the same places in this qualifying session. 13 minutes remaining.

DTM - Zandvoort: Here's the order at the halfway mark:
1. Wittmann
2. da Costa
3. Molina
4. Green
5. Blomqvist
6. Martin
7. Wehrlein
8. Farfus
9. Rockenfeller
10. Mortara

Fair Audi/BMW split, just the sole Mercedes in there. And still no sign of aerial moisture.

DTM - Zandvoort: Both yesterday and today, Glock hasn't bothered setting a time in the first half of the session. You'd suggest it's based on saving tyres for the race.

The BMW driver has just logged his first time, with eight minutes to go, and it's good enough for fifth.

Spengler is on the same strategy, he goes 11th. They had the track to themselves, with everyone else in pitlane.

DTM - Zandvoort: Spengler improves to eighth the next time around. With five minutes to go, and some drivers having completed their first runs on used tyres, happy hour is coming up...

DTM - Zandvoort: Rockenfeller and Wehrlein start that process, jumping up from the midfield to fourth and first respectively. Vietoris goes second, and we now have all 24 cars on track for the final three minutes.

DTM - Zandvoort: Traffic is a factor. A big chain of cars were backing each other up to get space for a clear lap. Blomqvist was on a flyer, green in the first sector and purple in the second, but then encountered the pack, ruining the lap. Wehrlein and Vietoris have pitted, after their smash-and-grab efforts a little earlier.

DTM - Zandvoort: Molina went top with 90 seconds to go, but as the chequered flag flies it's a BMW 1-2-3-4, with da Costa, Spengler, Farfus and Wittmann. They all set their laps inside the final 60 seconds.

DTM - Zandvoort: That'll be it. A day after taking his first DTM podium, Antonio Felix da Costa has his first pole, at the top of a BMW 1-2-3-4.

Molina and Wehrlein are fifth and sixth for Audi and Mercedes, ahead of Glock, whose BMW has stopped on track.

V8s - Townsville: Ford is on its way out of V8 Supercars, but will it leave with the title?

Mark Winterbottom of Ford Performance Racing stormed to a pair of wins on the Townsville street track this weekend, taking his 2015 win tally up to six and stretching his points lead to 248 over Craig Lowndes.

Jamie Whincup's struggle continues, he's still only eighth in the standings.

Mark Winterbottom wins Townsville V8 Supercars 2015

Moto2 - Sachsenring: Moto2 is up next, and that's a big one for the German crowd.

Jonas Folger is having a cracking season, though he's only eighth on the grid today - and that means he's not actually top German, as his Italian-named countryman Sandro Cortese starts one place ahead.

Championship leader Johann Zarco is on pole ahead of Xavier Simeon and Franco Morbidelli, and is chasing a third straight win.

Reigning champion Tito Rabat broke his collarbone in training last week, but he's been patched up and starts behind Tom Luthi and Simone Corsi in sixth.

British hope Sam Lowes is ninth, rookie star Alex Rins is 12th and struggling Moto3 champion Alex Marquez is 24th.

DTM - Zandvoort: So that was a pretty frenetic session at the end. Full report will be online shortly, but another strong showing from BMW after its sweep of the top seven yesterday.

With the traffic on circuit, Mercedes had the right idea in getting Wehrlein and Vietoris out a little earlier, to log their laps with three minutes remaining.

Of the drivers to get caught out, Blomqvist was green in sector one and purple in the second sector, before catching a train of cars on outlaps. He'll start 21st.

DTM - Zandvoort: da Costa's previous best DTM grid position was third at Oschersleben last year, you may recall that he had a strong start to his rookie campaign in qualifying.

BMW drivers are running lighter than Audi and Mercedes this weekend through the series' performance weight system - to the tune of about 25kg on average. That's worth about 0.5 seconds a lap, according to Audi.

But still, it's a big turnaround from where they were at the Lausitzring at the end of May, an event that prompted the series' tyre saga.

Moto2 - Sachsenring: Zarco had a bunch of underdogs around him at the lights and he let them get on with it - Morbidelli burst into the lead with Simeon all over him for first place right now.

Zarco is back in fourth behind Corsi, while the sore Rabat is ninth.

Moto2 - Sachsenring: The underdogs made it pretty easy for Zarco in the end - as Morbidelli, Simeon and Corsi battled for the lead, they took each other wide into the first corner and the points leader is through.

But he's not having it easy - Morbidelli is sticking to his back wheel.

FR3.5 - Red Bull Ring: Crazy events at the Red Bull Ring, where Manor Formula 1 racer Roberto Merhi slowed dramatically as he crossed the finish line and caused Nicholas Latifi to have a violent aerial crash.

More on how that came about on our news pages later...

Roberto Merhi and Nicholas Latifi crash, Red Bull Ring FR3.5 2015

In more normal events, Oliver Rowland stretched his points lead by beating Dean Stoneman to victory while his title rival Matthieu Vaxiviere had a tough day.

Red Bull Ring FR3.5 race one report

Moto2 - Sachsenring: Zarco can't shake off Morbidelli and Simeon still with the race around half-distance.

Corsi is fending off an advancing Rabat and Rins for fourth.

Not so great for the Germans: Cortese has fallen to 11th, Folger to 14th. Lowes runs eighth.

WTCC - Vila Real: Bom Dia from Vila Real! Jose Maria Lopez is leading the field around the formation lap on this incredibly twisty and fast street circuit.

Moto2 - Sachsenring: Despite breaking his collarbone just eight days ago, Rabat has moved up to fourth now.

That will probably be his limit, unless anything goes awry in this tense lead battle where Zarco is still holding off Morbidelli and Simeon.