Marco Wittmann has claimed pole position for the saturday DTM race in Assen. The two-time DTM champion posted an early time of 01:25:434, which was enough to hold off Audi's Rene Rast, who was under two-tenths begind with a 01:25:592.
The session was temporarily halted when Jake Dennis brought his R-Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage DTM to a halt on track, bringing out a red flag and delaying proceedings.
Once cars went back out, most drivers were not able to improve upon their times, which is a common occurence this season.
Loic Duval came in third with a time of 01:25:749, some three-tenths behind polesitter Wittmann. He outqualified Audi rookie Pietro Fittipaldi by just 0.002s. The third row on the grid was filled by BMW's Timo Glock, who was barely ahead of championship contender Nico Müller. The gap between the two was also just 0.002s.
The rest of the top ten was completed by Sheldon van der Linde, Bruno Spengler, Philipp Eng and Joel Eriksson. Spengler, who won last time out at the Norisring, set the fastest time early on before dropping back significantly.
Dutchman Robin Frijns was not able to impress his home crowd. The Dutchman qualified twelfth, a full second off the pole time. Regular Audi frontrunners Jamie Green and Mike Rockenfeller were also noticably off pace, with the both of them more than a second behind polesitter Wittmann. Aston Martin also struggled again, with the three remaining Vantages qualifying fifteenth through seventeenth.
