After taking his maiden career pole two weeks ago at Spa-Francorchamps, Robin Frijns is on pole again for Saturday’s race at the Lausitzring. It’s a front-row lock-out for Audi’s Team Abt Sportsline with Nico Mueller in second.
At the end of the first runs, it was Nico Mueller who was leading the field with the best time of 1:15.592. The Swiss Audi driver showed strong pace yesterday, topping both practise sessions yesterday. Mueller looked like the man to beat, though he was unable to improve on his time later in the session. His Team Abt Sportsline teammate Frijns on the other hand did just that, improving his time in the final minute of the session. He moved to the top of the timesheets with a 1:15.486. This is the Dutchman’s second career pole and his third front-row start of the season. The Abt Sportsline pair is followed by another Audi driver – Loic Duval. He will start the race from third on the grid.
Frijns said: ‘I didn’t really expect the pole position as I was struggling yesterday with the track and the car. For the race, there is less tyre degradation than we had at Spa. So, I hope we can hold the position.’
Unlike in the first race weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, the BMW’s seemed to be a bit more in the mix in today’s qualifying. In the early stages of the session, Sheldon van der Linde had the fastest time. But the fight for pole was tight, with positions changing rapidly. Still, van der Linde finished the session as best of the BMW’s in fourth. He had a gap of two tenths to Frijns.
Another pair of BMW’s will line up alongside each other on the third row of the grid – Timo Glock and Marco Wittmann. Rene Rast was not the most satisfied with his performance today, only managing seventh on the grid, 0.353 seconds slower than the pole time. His teammate Jamie Green will start alongside him. Completing the top ten are Audi’s Mike Rockenfeller and BMW’s Jonathan Aberdein.
Philipp Eng and Lucas Auer – both BMW – struggled a bit and have to start this afternoon’s race from 11th and 14th on the grid. Best of Audi’s customer team WRT is Ferdinand Habsburg in 12th. Rookies Fabio Scherer and Harrison Newey will start from 13th and 15th. Unfortunately, ART’s Robert Kubica has to start from last on the grid, with a gap of 1.364 seconds to pole man Frijns.
This weekend, the championship will be running on the Lausitzring’s sprint layout and the race will start at 13.30 local time (12.30 UK time).
