Auer Takes Saturday Pole at Lausitzring

Lucas Auer secured pole position for the first DTM race of the weekend at the Lausitzring, beating out BMW driver Sheldon van der Linde by just 0.035 seconds.

Auer set his best lap of the session early, reeling off a lap of 1:30.695 to go quickest in his No. 22 Team Winward Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

While the Austrian would not improve his time during the remainder of the session, he came under attack from a number of drivers who came within touching distance of pole position.

Van der Linde was the first to challenge for pole, with the No. 31 Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 jumping up to second place.

He remained there shortly before Maro Engel improved up his time to jump up to second, briefly demoting the South African back to third.

However, Van der Linde managed to then post an even quicker time of 1:30.679 to regain his spot on the first row of the grid.

Engel was third, with Luca Stolz fourth. Stolz demoted the Red Bull AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo 2020 of Felipe Fraga to fifth place.

The Brazilian briefly ran as high as third before dropping back behind the pair of Mercedes drivers.

Arjun Maini took sixth place with a late flyer, with Philipp Eng seventh ahead of the Abt Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo of Ricardo Feller.

Feller, along with teammate Rene Rast, were the only two Audi drivers to qualify inside the top ten as Portimao race winner Nico Mueller took fourteenth.

Rast completed the top ten, one position behind GRT Grasser Racing Team championship leader Mirko Bortolotti in ninth.

The opening race of the weekend begins at 1:30 p.m. local time.

RESULTS: Qualifying I