Vincent Abril has taken pole position for the Saturday DTM race at Monza, thus becoming the first polesitter for DTM’s GT3 era.
Abril posted a 01:46:488 to go fastest in his Mercedes-AMG Team HRT GT3 Evo, which was enough to take pole position.
The French driver at one point complained over the radio that he had collided with an animal, but that would not withhold him from taking the top spot in qualifying.
Daniel Juncadella qualified second upon his return to the DTM with Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM. The Spaniard put in a late charge to improve to second, but was not able to unsettle Abril. He came up short by 0.072s
Lucas Auer completed the top three in his Winward Racing Mercedes, while Maximilian Götz ensured that Mercedes locked out the front two rows by taking fourth.
Behind them, series rookie Esteban Muth put in an impressive showing to qualify fifth in the T3 Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo, just 0.375s off pole position.
Philip Ellis was sixth for Winward Racing, with the top ten completed by Liam Lawson, Nico Müller, Kelvin van der Linde and Maxi Buhk.
Series veteran Mike Rockenfeller qualified eleventh ahead of Esmee Hawkey, whose twelfth place for T3 Motorsports was impressive considering her very limited preparation time.
The Briton outpaced Arjun Maini, as well as Alex Albon, who had a difficult maiden qualifying session and could only manage fourteenth in his AlphaTauri AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo.
The BMW teams found themselves off the pace at Monza, with Walkenhorst Motorsport’s Marco Wittmann fifteenth and a second off the pace, ahead of the Rowe Racing pairing of Sheldon van der Linde and Timo Glock.
Team Rosberg rookie Dev Gore qualified eighteenth, while Abt Sportsline’s Sophia Floersch rounds out the grid in nineteenth.
