Hockenheim DTM: Da Costa on pole, Wittmann beats Mortara
Antonio Felix da Costa claimed his second career DTM pole in his final weekend in the category at Hockenheim, while Marco Wittmann saw off title rival Edoardo Mortara.
Photo by: Alexander Trienitz
Wittmann will start Saturday's race in fourth, surrounded by BMW stablemates, with Mortara set to fight through from eighth and the only other remaining title challenger Jamie Green down in P14.
It took a few minutes of qualifying for anyone to surpass Nico Muller's best lap of the weekend so far from FP2, Audi stablemate Mike Rockenfeller finally doing so with a 1m32.860s and Green joining him under the 1m33s margin.
Wittmann soon split the pair, but Rockenfeller went further clear with his next lap, lowering the benchmark to 1m32.716s.
But the championship leader was undeterred, stringing together two session-best sectors next time around, which, despite a slight moment in the final sector, allowed him to move to first place at 1m32.526s.
At the halfway point in the session, as drivers came back into the pits before their second runs, Wittmann headed an Audi 2-3-4-5, with title rivals Green and Mortara sat in third and fourth.
Miguel Molina, running off-sequence on a largely empty track, then snatched provisional pole with a 1m32.444s lap with four minutes to go – with da Costa quickly lowering that to 1m32.344s.
And despite track evolution, those two would remain at the front of the pack to the very end of the session.
Tom Blomqvist moved up to third in the closing stages, while a last-gasp lap from Wittmann promoted him to fourth, just 0.004s behind Blomqvist.
Maxime Martin made it a BMW 1-3-4-5 out front, followed by Rockenfeller and another BMW Augusto Farfus.
A late improvement from Mortara was enough to move him up from 15th to eighth, with Timo Glock and Muller making up the top 10 – and Green only 14th.
It was an entirely anonymous session for Mercedes, with Paul di Resta in P12 – less than half a second off pole – leading the marque's eight cars.
Qualifying results
Pos. | # | Driver | Car | Time | Gap | km/h |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 13 | Antonio Felix da Costa | BMW M4 DTM | 1'32.344 | 178.315 | |
2 | 17 | Miguel Molina | Audi RS5 DTM | 1'32.444 | 0.100 | 178.122 |
3 | 31 | Tom Blomqvist | BMW M4 DTM | 1'32.508 | 0.164 | 177.999 |
4 | 11 | Marco Wittmann | BMW M4 DTM | 1'32.512 | 0.168 | 177.992 |
5 | 36 | Maxime Martin | BMW M4 DTM | 1'32.574 | 0.230 | 177.872 |
6 | 99 | Mike Rockenfeller | Audi RS5 DTM | 1'32.620 | 0.276 | 177.784 |
7 | 18 | Augusto Farfus | BMW M4 DTM | 1'32.631 | 0.287 | 177.763 |
8 | 48 | Edoardo Mortara | Audi RS5 DTM | 1'32.662 | 0.318 | 177.703 |
9 | 16 | Timo Glock | BMW M4 DTM | 1'32.700 | 0.356 | 177.631 |
10 | 51 | Nico Müller | Audi RS5 DTM | 1'32.704 | 0.360 | 177.623 |
11 | 72 | René Rast | Audi RS5 DTM | 1'32.726 | 0.382 | 177.581 |
12 | 3 | Paul di Resta | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 1'32.794 | 0.450 | 177.451 |
13 | 2 | Gary Paffett | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 1'32.884 | 0.540 | 177.279 |
14 | 53 | Jamie Green | Audi RS5 DTM | 1'32.908 | 0.564 | 177.233 |
15 | 10 | Timo Scheider | Audi RS5 DTM | 1'32.918 | 0.574 | 177.214 |
16 | 84 | Maximilian Götz | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 1'32.922 | 0.578 | 177.206 |
17 | 8 | Christian Vietoris | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 1'32.956 | 0.612 | 177.141 |
18 | 88 | Felix Rosenqvist | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 1'33.018 | 0.674 | 177.023 |
19 | 100 | Martin Tomczyk | BMW M4 DTM | 1'33.149 | 0.805 | 176.774 |
20 | 7 | Bruno Spengler | BMW M4 DTM | 1'33.168 | 0.824 | 176.738 |
21 | 6 | Robert Wickens | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 1'33.238 | 0.894 | 176.606 |
22 | 22 | Lucas Auer | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 1'33.254 | 0.910 | 176.575 |
23 | 27 | Adrien Tambay | Audi RS5 DTM | 1'33.285 | 0.941 | 176.517 |
24 | 12 | Daniel Juncadella | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 1'33.362 | 1.018 | 176.371 |
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