Engel Takes Pole in Stop-Start Wet Sunday Qualifying

Maro Engel secured his first pole position in DTM by topping a qualifying session at the Red Bull Ring that was impacted by heavy rain and red flagged three separate times.

Engel set an early benchmark lap of 1:40.776 in the No. 88 Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo that would not be beaten by anybody as drivers struggled through a session impacted by heavy rain throughout.

Several drivers had difficulties staying on the track, with Mikael Grenier causing the first red flag with less than a minute on the clock when the Canadian lost control of his No. 55 GruppeM Mercedes and hit the barrier at turn two.

Once it was resumed, Maximilian Goetz set the quickest time only to be quickly surpassed by Engel. The Mercedes pair would remain in one-two position for the rest of the session.

Two more red flags followed, first for Dev Gore and later for Ricardo Feller, with the session coming to a premature end when the Swiss driver beached his No. 7 Abt Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II in the gravel at turn 7 with under two minutes remaining.

Saturday winner Nick Cassidy took third ahead of Felipe Fraga, who also nearly caused a red flag when he went off at turn 7, but managed to avoid the barriers.

Philipp Eng was fifth with Sheldon van der Linde sixth, but the points leader is set to start in 14th as a result of a grid penalty for track limits on Saturday.

Arjun Maini ended the session seventh ahead of Thomas Preining, David Schumacher and Rene Rast, who completed the top ten.

The final race of the weekend is due to start at 1:30 p.m. CEST (7:30 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Qualifying