Auer, who won the opening round of the 2022 season in Portimao and has three DTM victories to his name at the east German track, posted the benchmark time of 1m30.654s in the opening half of the 20-minute session but couldn't improve his time further as others around him closed in.
Van der Linde, who had been 0.25s behind the Austrian at the halfway point in the session, produced two laps less than a tenth slower than Auer but had to settle for second on the grid as the only non-Mercedes driver in the top four.
