Aitken on Pole in Delayed, Red-Flagged Saturday Qualifying

Jack Aitken secured a second DTM career pole position by beating Mirko Bortolotti in a delayed, red-flagged and extended Saturday qualifying session at Oschersleben.

In a session that started nearly an hour later than scheduled due to barrier repairs due to a crash in the preceding ADAC GT Masters qualifying session, the British driver steered the No. 14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 to a best lap of 1:21.465.

In the process, Aitken outpaced Bortolotti by 0.104 seconds after the No. 92 SSR Performance Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 had initially claimed provisional pole position by posting a 1:21.569 before Aitken improved.

Moments later, Bortolotti’s SSR stablemate Nicki Thiim spun into the barriers at Turn 2, bringing out the red flag with one minute and 59 seconds remaining.

The session was then extended to offer three minutes of time remaining and was restarted, with Aitken one of the drivers to rejoin while the likes of Bortolotti, Luca Stolz and Sheldon van der Linde did not.

Additionally, some of the drivers that were caught out by the red flag, like Kelvin van der Linde, Thomas Preining, Maro Engel and Marco Wittmann, headed out to try and improve their times.

However, no improved lap times were posted all four drivers will start the race from outside the top ten in 12th, 16th, 17th and 19th respectively.

Arjun Maini qualified third in the No. 36 Mercedes-AMG Team HRT Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, ahead of ABT Sportsline driver Ricardo Feller, Stolz and Van der Linde.

Christian Engelhart slotted into seventh at the circuit he took his maiden DTM win last year, with Lucas Auer eighth and Rene Rast and Luca Engstler rounding out the top ten.

Aitken’s Emil Frey stablemate Thierry Vermeulen qualified eleventh, with Van der Linde ahead of Thiim and the No. 71 Paul Motorsport Lamborghini of Maximilian Paul, which also went off the track at roughly the same time as Thiim but was able to rejoin.

The opening race of the DTM season kicks off at 1:30 p.m. CEST (7:30 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Qualifying 1