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Rachit Thukral

DTM Zandvoort: Feller takes pole for Audi in red-flagged qualifying

With just under four minutes left to go in the session, Grasser Racing driver Schmid lost control of his Lamborghini coming out of Turn 3, with his SSR Performance counterpart Deledda crashing his Huracan at almost the same time at Turn 8.

The red flag was deployed to assist marshals in recovering the two Lamborghinis, before the track was cleared again for a short, three-minute session.

Manthey EMA Porsche’s Thomas Preining was leading qualifying at this stage thanks to a 1m33.364s lap set in the first 10 minutes, with Saturday polesitter Maro Engel holding second in his Landgraf Mercedes.

Due to time constraints, drivers had time for only one flying lap, with Engel leading the field of cars out of the pitlane as he aimed to secure a double pole.

But it would be Feller that would end qualifying on top, setting a time of 1m33.020s to take his second career pole by just over three tenths of a second.

Both Preining and Engel were unable to improve on their previous laptimes and ended up second and third on the grid, while a late effort from Orange1’s Patric Niederhauser secured the factory Audi driver a spot on the second row.

Niederhauser’s late improvement dropped Team Bernhard Porsche’s Laurin Heinrich to fifth, ahead of the HRT Mercedes of Luca Stolz.

Project 1 driver Marco Wittmann’s pre-red flag time of 1m33.610s made him the top BMW representative in seventh, ahead of the Porsches of Ayhancan Guven (Bernhard) and Dennis Olsen (Manthey EMA).

Kelvin van der Linde rounded out the top 10 for Abt with a time that was 0.741s down on his polesitting team-mate Feller.

Albert Costa led the way for Ferrari in 11th as he continued to impress oon his debut weekend for Emil Frey Racing as a substitute for Jack Aitken, while Christian Engelhart managed to qualify 12th in the Toksport WRT Porsche despite a late spin in qualifying.

Dries Vanthoor, the other substitute driver on the grid, qualified 14th for Schubert BMW behind the Audi of Luca Engstler.

Reigning champion Sheldon van der Linde had not set a flying lap when the qualifying was red-flagged with just over three minutes left on the clock. Although he was able to return on track and set a time, it left him 17th on the grid a day after he had qualified on the front row.

It was a difficult qualifying for Lamborghini, with SSR Performance’s Franck Perera the Italian manufacturer’s best representative in 18th ahead of team-mate Mirko Bortolotti.

DTM Zandvoort - Qualifying results:

Cla # Driver Car Time Gap
1 7 Switzerland Ricardo Feller Audi R8 LMS Evo II 1'33.020  
2 91 Austria Thomas Preining Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 1'33.364 0.344
3 48 Germany Maro Engel Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'33.517 0.497
4 83 Switzerland Patric Niederhauser Audi R8 LMS Evo II 1'33.554 0.534
5 75 Germany Laurin Heinrich Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 1'33.570 0.550
6 4 Germany Luca Stolz Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'33.608 0.588
7 11 Germany Marco Wittmann BMW M4 GT3 1'33.610 0.590
8 24 Turkey Ayhancan Güven Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 1'33.621 0.601
9 90 Norway Dennis Olsen Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 1'33.736 0.716
10 3 South Africa Kelvin van der Linde Audi R8 LMS Evo II 1'33.761 0.741
11 14 United Kingdom Jack Aitken Ferrari 296 GT3 1'33.763 0.743
12 99 Germany Christian Engelhart Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 1'33.872 0.852
13 8 Germany Luca Engstler Audi R8 LMS Evo II 1'33.907 0.887
14 33 Germany René Rast BMW M4 GT3 1'33.947 0.927
15 22 Austria Lucas Auer Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'33.950 0.930
16 9 Tim Heinemann Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 1'33.960 0.940
17 1 South Africa Sheldon Van Der Linde BMW M4 GT3 1'34.040 1.020
18 94 Frank Perera Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 1'34.081 1.061
19 92 Italy Mirko Bortolotti Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 1'34.163 1.143
20 36 India Arjun Maini Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'34.186 1.166
21 84 Jusuf Owega Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'34.262 1.242
22 27 Germany David Schumacher Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo 1'34.351 1.331
23 40 Italy Mattia Drudi Audi R8 LMS Evo II 1'34.527 1.507
24 69 Thierry Vermeulen Ferrari 296 GT3 1'34.639 1.619
25 19 Austria Mick Wishofer Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 1'35.185 2.165
26 6 Italy Alessio Deledda Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 1'35.940 2.920
27 63 Austria Clemens Schmid Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 1'36.450 3.430
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