Van der Linde Takes Pole in Grouped Norisring Qualifying

Sheldon Van der Linde took pole position for the Saturday DTM race at the Norisring as the grouped qualifying format returned for the German street circuit.

The reigning DTM champion posted a best lap of 48.775 aboard the No. 1 Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3, leading the way in the second qualifying group.

The South African went 0.158 seconds quicker than the No. 91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R of Thomas Preining, who led the way in the opening group but watched from the sidelines as Van der Linde improved on his efforts.

As he was still the quickest in his group, he will join Van der Linde on the front row for this afternoon’s race.

The grouped qualifying format, introduced for the first time last year, split the session into two groups of 14 and 13 drivers, respectively.

The grid for this afternoon’s race will be determined as all drivers of the respective group line up directly behind the fastest driver.

As a result, drivers with uneven starting positions line up behind pole sitter Van der Linde. Drivers with even slots will start the race behind Preining.

Ayhancan Guven, who took second behind Van der Linde in the second group, will start the race from third place ahead of Luca Stolz, Kelvin van der Linde and Mirko Bortolotti.

Rene Rast qualified seventh with Lucas Auer and Jusuf Owega eighth and ninth, respectively.

The top ten was completed by the No. 7 ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Ricardo Feller, who will start ahead of Dennis Olsen, Laurin Heinrich and Tim Heinemann.

The first DTM race of the weekend start at 1:30 p.m. CEST (7:30 a.m. EDT).