Feller Beats Van der Linde to Sunday Pole in Damp Qualifying

Ricardo Feller took a last-gasp pole position in a damp Sunday DTM qualifying session at the Nürburgring.

The Swiss driver put in a late flying lap of 1:29.562 to put the No. 7 ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II on pole for this afternoon’s 60-minute race.

Feller’s time came amidst a flurry of late improvements as the track dried out after the session begun under damp conditions.

The slippery track surface caught numerous drivers by surprise, most notably Saturday race winner Mirko Bortolotti.

The Italian spun his No. 92 SSR Performance Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 at Turn 3 in the opening minutes and was unable to get his car restarted, triggering a red flag.

Bortolotti did not rejoin the session to set a lap time and will start the race from last place.

A number of other drivers found Turn 5 on the shortened Nürburgring layout difficult to navigate, with the likes of Thomas Preining, Rene Rast, Kelvin van der Linde and Maro Engel running wide and taking to the grass before rejoining the circuit.

As the track dried out, times began to tumble with Feller the first to post a serious time before Jack Aitken steered his No. 14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 to a 1:30.028.

However, the British driver was denied a first series pole as Feller crossed the line to improve and take pole position, before reigning champion Sheldon van der Linde also went faster to drop Aitken to third place.

The gap between Feller and Van der Linde was 0.247 seconds, with Aitken a further 0.219 seconds down.

David Schumacher qualified fourth, with Team Winward stablemate Lucas Auer completing the top five.

Marco Wittmann set the sixth quickest time aboard the No. 11 Team Project 1 BMW M4 GT3, ahead of Engel and Dennis Olsen.

Tim Heinemann and Kelvin van der Linde completed the top ten, ahead of Laurin Heinrich and Rene Rast.

The second and final DTM race of the weekend starts at 1:30 p.m. CEST (7:30 a.m. CDT).

RESULTS: Qualifying 2