Sheldon Van der Linde Narrowly Beats Brother to Sunday Pole

Sheldon van der Linde secured his second pole position of the season for DTM’s Sunday race at the Nürburgring, outpacing brother Kelvin by a fraction of a second.

The championship leader reeled off lap of 1:25:945 behind the wheel of his No. 31 Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 to go quickest amidst a flurry of late improvements in the second half of the 10-minute session.

Up until that point, Lucas Auer had sat at the top of the session with a best lap of 1:26.126 that nobody had been able to improve upon until Van der Linde came through in the closing minutes to leap to the top.

The South African’s flyer was closely followed by a quick lap from Thomas Preining slotting into second before the Austrian was bested by fellow Porsche driver Dennis Olsen.

Olsen looked to have a front row start secured until Kelvin van der Linde’s No. 3 Abt Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II slotted into second place with a 1:25.955, just 0.010 seconds slower than his brother.

The 1-2 result for the brothers is identical to the outcome from Saturday’s opening race, when Sheldon beat Kelvin to secure his third victory of the season.

Olsen was left third, with Mirko Bortolotti qualifying fourth although the Italian will start ninth thanks to a grid penalty sustained following yesterday’s contact with Felipe Fraga.

Therefore Preining will join Olsen on the second row, with Philipp Eng starting fifth ahead of Maximilian Goetz, Luca Stolz and Laurens Vanthoor.

Lucas Auer was unable to improve after his mid-session flyer and will start the session in tenth position.

DTM Race 2 starts at 1:30 p.m. CEST (7:30 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Qualifying 2