Rene Rast has captured pole position for the penultimate race of the 2019 DTM season in a frantic session that saw a number of drivers compete for the top spot.
Rast's 01:45:552 was the quickest time in a session where laptimes continously kept dropping as drivers found a rhythm around the Hockenheimring. The newly crowned double champion had to beat out drivers from both Audi and BMW, with Aston Martin even briefly in the mix during the session.
Marco Wittmann came closest to toppling Rast, but his best effort of 01:45:679 left him 0.127s short after Rast improved his lap time in the dying minutes of the session to end up on top. Mike Rockenfeller qualified third, ahead of Team WRT's Jonathan Aberdein who underlined a strong rookie season with yet another strong qualifying performance to end up fourth.
Loic Duval was another major candidate for pole position and even topped the timing sheets in the final minutes, but eventually ended up in fifth. His effort was worsened when he got his Audi RS5 DTM stuck in the Sachs Kurve gravel right at the end of the session.
He still managed to outqualify Jenson Button, who showed he hadn't lost his touch around the Hockenheimring as he put his Honda NSX-GT on sixth, by far the strongest performance of any of the SUPER GT guest runners. His Japanese colleagues Ryo Hirakawa (Lexus) and Tsugio Matsuda (Nissan) struggled during the session, and will occupy the last two grid slots in this afternoon's race.
Timo Glock took seventh, despite carrying strong pace throughout the session and even topping the sheets on several occasions. He was also one of a few drivers who got caught out by the slippery conditions, going for a spin on the drag strip runoff at the final two corners of the circuit.
Robin Frijns, who took eighth, also had a spill at the Sachs Curve, but was able to get his car out of the gravel without too much effort. The top ten was completed by Sheldon van der Linde and Joel Eriksson, while championship runner-up Nico Müller will start from eleventh place.
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