Feller Scores Maiden DTM Pole at Imola

Ricardo Feller scored his maiden pole position in DTM by going fastest in qualifying for the second race of the weekend in a session where the top five was made up by five different manufacturers.

Feller set a best lap of 1:39.814 behind the wheel of his No. 7 Abt Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, which was 0.152 seconds faster than the Red Bull AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 driven by Felipe Fraga.

Fraga jumped up to second place late in the session amidst a flurry of improvements that notably saw Saturday race winner Rene Rast drop from the front row to eighth place in a matter of moments.

Marco Wittmann also briefly ran as high as second before he was demoted to third by Fraga, although he remained ahead of Maro Engel and the No. 85 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo of Clemens Schmid.

Schmid, who scored his first DTM points on Saturday, put in another strong qualifying showing by coming fifth, ahead of Nick Cassidy, Luca Stolz and Rast.

The top eight from Sunday’s session looked notably different from yesterday, when qualifying was dominated by Audi, Porsche and Lamborghini. 

Overnight Balance of Performance changes have added an additional 25 kilograms to the Audis and Lamborghinis, with Porsche running 5 kilograms heavier.

Lucas Auer finished the session in ninth ahead of Mirko Bortolotti, Sheldon van der Linde, Philipp Eng and Nico Mueller.

Porsche fell outside the top ten during the 20-minute session, with Dennis Olsen the best-placed Porsche driver in sixteenth and Thomas Preining seventeenth.

The final DTM race of the weekend starts at 1:30 p.m. CEST (7:3o p.m. ET)

RESULTS: Qualifying 1