Kelvin van der Linde will start from pole position for the Saturday DTM race at the Hockenheimring.
Van der Linde set a 01:36:649 in his Abt Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo to go quickest, beating out Lucas Auer’s Team Winward Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo by 0.483s.
Auer set a quick lap very early in the 15-minute session and remained at the top of the time sheets throughout most of the session, until Van der Linde posted his time late in the session to take pole position away from the Austrian.
Championship leader Liam Lawson qualified third for Red Bull AF Corse, with Daniel Juncadella fourth and Arjun Maini rounding out the top five.
Maximilian Götz, another championship contender, will start sixth ahead of Vincent Abril, Nico Müller and Alex Albon.
Marvin Dienst, who replaces Maxi Buhk at Mucke Motorsport for the weekend, rounds out the top ten.
Troublesome session for Wittmann
While title rivals Van der Linde and Lawson both start the penultimate weekend of the championship inside the top three, Marco Wittmann will start the race outside the top ten.
The German, who won the Saturday race last time out at Assen and has become one of the frontrunners in the title fight, posted a 01:37:874 and will start the race from thirteenth place in his Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3.
He was still the quickest BMW driver, as the Rowe Racing pair of Timo Glock and Sheldon van der Linde qualified fifteenth and sixteenth respectively, both behind the T3 Motorsport Lamborghini of Esmee Hawkey.
Guest drivers towards back of grid
The Hockenheim round of the championship features two guest drivers, who will both start the Saturday race towards the back of the grid.
Lucas di Grassi, driving a fourth car for Abt Sportsline and making his series debut, qualified eighteenth. He will start right in between team-mates Mike Rockenfeller (seventeenth) and Sophia Floersch (nineteenth).
Hubert Haupt, team owner for Team HRT, is driving one of his team’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, but the former full-time DTM driver qualified 20th out of 21 drivers, with Team Rosberg’s Dev Gore rounding out the grid.
