Rast claims last-gasp pole position in dry qualifying

With the track still wet from the overnight downpour, the entire field initially headed out on wet tires for their opening heats in the 20-minute pole shootout.

It was the Red Bull Ferrari of Nick Cassidy who set the early pace, ahead of the Porsche of Saturday’s race winner Dennis Olsen with a time of 2min 28.459s.

At the start of the second half of the session, the track dried out enough that some drivers started playing on slick rubber, with reigning champion Maximilian Gotz first to make the switch in his Winward Mercedes.

Last year’s GT Masters champion Riccardo Feller’s Abt Audi followed suit and ran more than a second faster than Cassidy’s benchmark of 2m27.190s, making it clear that slick tires were now to be used.

As the track continued to dry, a flurry of fast laps followed, with a new driver moving into first place every 30 seconds.

It soon turned into a race to see who would be the last to cross the finish line, and three-time champion Rust timed his run perfectly, clocking a quick 2×23.424s at the end of the session to claim pole position.

The Abt Audi driver was just 0.044s ahead of the BMW of Schubert van der Linde, the South African looking set to take his third pole position of the year until Rust made amends with a late flyer.

Behind the two championship contenders, Cassidy achieved his best DTM qualifying result with a time of 2×23.476s in his AF Corse Ferrari, just 0.052s off the top spot.

GruppeM driver Mikael Greinier was Mercedes’ best in qualifying, finishing fourth ahead of team-mate Mar Engel and fellow AMG GT3 driver Gotz, while Feller had to settle for seventh despite his early heroics on smooth tyres.

Thomas Preining lifted his Team Bernhard 75 Porsche to eighth, while Grasser’s Clemens Schmid was the only Lamborghini driver to finish in the top 10, ninth.

After retiring from Saturday’s race in second due to a puncture, Gotz’s Winward team-mate Lucas Auer completed the top 10 as Kelvin van der Linde (Abt Audi) and Felipe Frago (Red Bull Ferrari) qualified just behind him. taking 11th and 12th places respectively.

Mirko Bartolotti’s title hopes suffered another blow as he struggled to qualify 22nd in his Grasser Lamborghini with a time almost 3 seconds off him. He will start one spot ahead of Olsen, who dropped to 23rd.

DTM Spa qualifying results: