Lawson takes Saturday DTM pole at Red Bull Ring

Red Bull junior Liam Lawson reignited his title hopes by securing pole position for the first race of the DTM weekend at the Red Bull Ring, whilst points leader Kelvin van der Linde starts eighth.

Lawson endured a tough couple of races at the Nurburgring last time out, which saw him drop to fifth in the points standings.

However in Austria, the New Zealander set the pace on Friday and that rolled over to Saturday as he placed his AF Corse Ferrari on pole with a time of 1:27.851 to beat the Mercedes of Maximilian Gotz by just under three tenths.

The session saw pole change hands repeatedly as the track evolved, with Rowe BMW’s Sheldon van der Linde taking the top spot before Arjun Maini pipped him by just 0.001, before dropping to third – his best DTM qualifying position.

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But it was Lawson who took the top spot on his final run to snatch pole from Gotz, who also improved late on.

Philip Ellis rounds out the top five, just denying AlphaTauri’s Alex Albon by 0.035s, as the former F1 driver starts sixth ahead of Marco Whittmann and points leader Kelvin van der Linde in the Audi R8 LMS.

The session saw Maximilian Paul crash out on his DTM qualifying debut, but before that he posted a time good enough for 16th, behind his T3 Lamborghini team-mate Esteban Muth.