Laurin Heinrich snatches his first DTM pole in the dying seconds

“Qualifying is always a bit hectic when you have rain and red flags, but we made the most of it. It is my engineer Erik’s birthday today, so the pole position is a great present for him. After chatting to my team principal Timo Bernhard during the break, we decided to go for wet tyres for the final few minutes. That was the right decision, but the track still continued to dry out round the back of the circuit. I knew it would come down to the final lap, so I made sure my tyres were at the ideal working temperature at that point,” said the winner of the Pirelli Pole Position Award, who also picks up three bonus points for his effort.

Kelvin van der Linde (ZA), who was the fastest man for much of the qualifying session, took second place for Abt Sportsline in an Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2, 0.065 seconds off Heinrich’s best time. Third place went to Heinrich’s team-mate Ayhancan Güven (TR), followed by the two Porsche 911 of Manthey EMA: local favourite Thomas Preining (A), who is currently second in the table, ended qualifying in fourth place, with Dennis Olsen (N) rounding out the top five. Championship leader Mirko Bortolotti (I) could do no better than tenth in his Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2.

Tyre selection was the decisive factor in Saturday morning’s opening qualifying session at the circuit in Spielberg. With track temperatures down around 15 degrees Celsius and wet asphalt, most drivers initially took to the 4.318-kilometre track on wets. David Schumacher (Salzburg) opted for slicks and, with the track still wet, sent his Mercedes-AMG GT3 skidding into a tyre wall. After a 15-minute break, most teams resumed qualifying on slicks – only to switch back to wet tyres again shortly after, as the Alpine circuit did not dry out as much as expected. Kelvin an der Linde initially set one fastest time after another and looked certain to take pole. However, the South African eventually had to settle for second place, as rookie Heinrich pounced to deny him at the last minute.