Lausitzring DTM: Auer holds off charging van der Linde for pole

Auer, who won the opening round of the 2022 season in Portimao and has three DTM victories to his name at the east German track, posted the benchmark time of 1m30.654s in the opening half of the 20-minute session but couldn't improve his time further as others around him closed in.

Van der Linde, who had been 0.25s behind the Austrian at the halfway point in the session, produced two laps less than a tenth slower than Auer but had to settle for second on the grid as the only non-Mercedes driver in the top four.

The South African's late effort demoted Maro Engel to third, the GruppeM Mercedes driver 0.067s slower than stablemate Auer in an ultra-tight session, with Luca Stolz fourth in the leading HRT Mercedes.

Stolz however faces an investigation for crossing the white line at the pit exit.

Felipe Fraga had been third in the closing stages of the session before behind shuffled back to fifth in the Red Bull Ferrari, and will share the third row with Stolz's teammate Arjun Maini.

Philipp Eng will line up seventh in the second Schubert BMW, ahead of reigning ADAC GT Masters champion Ricardo Feller in the leading Abt Audi entry.

The Swiss set an identical laptime, 1m31.147s, to championship leader Mirko Bortolotti's Grasser Racing Lamborghini but will start ahead courtesy of posting his effort first.

Three-time DTM champion Rene Rast rounded out the top 10, 0.494s down on Auer and only a thousand of a second slower than Feller and Bortolotti.

The best Porsche was Dennis Olsen's SSR Performance example in 11th, as Nick Cassidy took 12th on his first appearance of the season in the second Red Bull Ferrari.

Portimao race two winner Nico Muller waited until the final eight minutes of the session to venture out of the pits for the first time, but couldn't repeat Bortolotti's successful adoption of the tactic in Portimao.

The Swiss could only muster the 14th-quickest time in his Team Rosberg Audi, just behind defending champion Maximilian Gotz's Winward Mercedes.

A similar strategy for David Schumacher in the third Winward Mercedes yielded the 17th-quickest time.

Lausitzring DTM - Qualifying results:

Pos	Nº	Driver	Car / Engine	Time	Delay
1	22	Lucas Auer	Mercedes	1'30.654
2	31	Sheldon van der Linde	BMW	1'30.679	0.025
3	88	Maro Engel	Mercedes	1'30.721	0.067
4	4	Luca Stolz	Mercedes	1'30.864	0.210
5	74	Felipe Fraga	Ferrari	1'30.971	0.317
6	36	Arjun Maini	Mercedes	1'30.987	0.333
7	25	Philipp Eng	BMW	1'31.118	0.464
8	7	Ricardo Feller	Audi	1'31.147	0.493
9	63	Mirko Bortolotti	Lamborghini	1'31.147	0.493
10	33	René Rast	Audi	1'31.148	0.494
11	94	Dennis Olsen	Porsche	1'31.159	0.505
12	37	Nick Cassidy	Ferrari	1'31.172	0.518
13	1	Maximilian Götz	Mercedes	1'31.184	0.530
14	51	Nico Müller	Audi	1'31.302	0.648
15	55	Mikaël Grenier	Mercedes	1'31.304	0.650
16	11	Marco Wittmann	BMW	1'31.397	0.743
17	27	David Schumacher	Mercedes	1'31.437	0.783
18	18	Maximilian Buhk	Mercedes	1'31.461	0.807
19	3	Kelvin van der Linde	Audi	1'31.528	0.874
20	24	Thomas Preining	Porsche	1'31.540	0.886
21	10	Esteban Muth	BMW	1'31.575	0.921
22	92	Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche	1'31.666	1.012
23	95	Nicki Thiim	Lamborghini	1'31.799	1.145
24	12	Dev Gore	Audi	1'31.806	1.152
25	66	Marius Zug	Audi	1'31.812	1.158
26	19	Rolf Ineichen	Lamborghini	1'32.220	1.566
27	85	Clemens Schmid	Lamborghini	1'32.483	1.829
28	26	Esmee Hawkey	Lamborghini	1'33.252	2.598
29	6	Alessio Deledda	Lamborghini	1'34.366	3.712