Lucas Auer Drives into Pole with New Lap Record at Lausitzring

“We made several changes to the car set-up after the free practice session and were rewarded with pole position. I managed a start-finish-victory at the opener in Oschersleben and that’s the plan again for the upcoming race. It will be a real challenge: the grip levels on the track vary greatly and there are lots of bumps. But this is what makes the Lausitzring what it is,” said the 30-year-old DTM frontrunner of Mercedes-AMG Team Landgraf, who celebrated his first DTM victory at the Lausitzring in 2016.

Ricardo Feller delivered a strong performance in the Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2 of Land-Motorsport and trailed by 0.033 seconds to finish in second place. In third place was Maro Engel of Mercedes-AMG Team Winward Racing, followed by his brand colleague Jules Gounon in fourth place. René Rast of Schubert Motorsport was the best BMW driver, and he secured fifth place.

In cool temperatures of just under ten degrees Celsius, it took nearly fifteen minutes for the 24 DTM drivers to get the Pirelli tyres to the required temperature. Then the best times came in thick and fast. Three minutes before the end, Auer became the first driver to come in under the 1:20.000-minute mark at this DTM weekend and in doing so secured the best time in qualifying. Shortly before the end of the session, Feller edged past Engel to take second place, and seconds later Gounon steered the third Mercedes-AMG into the top five: The first qualifying session at the Lausitzring highlighted once again just how good the DTM field is: The first 17 of the 24 drivers in total were all within half a second of each other.

Qualifying result, 3rd race of the season, Dekra Lausitzring

1. Lucas Auer (A/Mercedes-AMG Team Landgraf), 1:19.827 minutes
2. Ricardo Feller (CH/Land-Motorsport), +0.033 seconds
3. Maro Engel (D/Mercedes-AMG Team Winward Racing), +0.062 seconds
4. Jules Gounon (F/Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter), +0.146 seconds
5. René Rast (D/Schubert Motorsport), +0.169 seconds