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Lausitz DTM: Rast beats Green, Muller to pole

Rene Rast took his sixth pole position of the 2019 DTM season at the Lausitzring, defeating Audi teammate and title rival Nico Muller with a last-minute lap.

René Rast, Audi Sport Team Rosberg, Audi RS 5 DTM

René Rast, Audi Sport Team Rosberg, Audi RS 5 DTM

Audi Communications Motorsport

Rast had been as low as eighth after making "mistakes" during his first run, but returned to the track to set the best lap of 1m35.241s as he and Muller traded best sector times late on. 

Muller crossed the line just after Rast and placed third with a 1m35.438s lap, with Audi's Jamie Green splitting the two title rivals.

Audi locked out the top four positions with Robin Frijns beating BMW's Marco Wittmann to fourth. 

If Audi scores 20 points more than BMW through the Lausitzring weekend, it will seal the manufacturer's crown with two rounds to go. 

Mike Rockenfeller (Audi) qualified sixth having held provisional pole at the end of the first run. 

WRT Audi driver Pietro Fittipaldi was seventh and moments after setting his fastest lap his right-hand door came loose on the car and forced him into the pits before continuing. 

Philipp Eng was eighth for BMW and stablemate Timo Glock took ninth after skating across the gravel early in the session. 

Joel Eriksson completed the top 10 for BMW, while Jake Dennis was the leading R-Motorsport Aston Martin driver in 13th.

Shortly after qualifying, it was confirmed by the sporting commission that the R-Motorsport squad had requested the seal on four of its HWA-built engines to be broken. 

Motorsport.com understands the Aston Martin team had taken the precaution after spotting an irregularity in its data that required further inspection.

A statement read: "As a result, according to the rules (Article 28.5), all four Aston Martin will not be considered for the manufacturers' championship in Saturday's race. Driver and team ranking remain unaffected."

It is the second time Aston has been ineligible to score manufacturer points after it was unable to count the tally scored by Jake Dennis finishing in sixth at Zolder.

Audi is the only manufacturer yet to break engine seals in 2019, after BMW elected to do so at Brands Hatch on reliability grounds. 

Session results:

Cla # Driver Car Time Gap
1 33 Germany René Rast
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 1'35.241
2 53 United Kingdom Jamie Green
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 1'35.286 0.045
3 51 Switzerland Nico Müller
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 1'35.438 0.197
4 4 Netherlands Robin Frijns
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 1'35.537 0.296
5 11 Germany Marco Wittmann
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 1'35.581 0.340
6 99 Germany Mike Rockenfeller
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 1'35.595 0.354
7 21 Brazil Pietro Fittipaldi
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 1'35.736 0.495
8 25 Austria Philipp Eng
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 1'35.760 0.519
9 16 Germany Timo Glock
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 1'35.926 0.685
10 47 Sweden Joel Eriksson
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 1'35.970 0.729
11 28 France Loic Duval
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 1'36.001 0.760
12 7 Canada Bruno Spengler
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 1'36.052 0.811
13 76 United Kingdom Jake Dennis
Aston Martin Vantage DTM 1'36.134 0.893
14 27 South Africa Jonathan Aberdein
Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM 1'36.189 0.948
15 31 South Africa Sheldon Van Der Linde
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 1'36.198 0.957
16 3 United Kingdom Paul di Resta
Aston Martin Vantage DTM 1'36.524 1.283
17 23 Spain Daniel Juncadella
Aston Martin Vantage DTM 1'37.012 1.771
18 62 Austria Ferdinand Habsburg
Aston Martin Vantage DTM 1'38.487 3.246

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