DTM Assen qualifying 2 report: Auer takes pole as Van der Linde leaves it late

Lucas Auer scored his first pole position of the season and tenth of his career at TT Circuit Assen. The Austrian went to the top of the charts late in the session, following a red flag. Meanwhile, title contender Kelvin van der Linde’s struggle in the Netherlands continued.

Having seen safety cars ruin his strategy in race 1 resulting in him losing the championship lead, Kelvin van der Linde, driving the Team ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3, found himself at the bottom of the times with just 3 minutes of the session remaining after Sofia Flörsch found the gravel trap and the session was stopped.

At the restart, his championship rivals Liam Lawson, Marco Wittmann and Maxi Götz held the top 3 grid positions, with Lawson and Wittmann grabbing the top spot moments before the red flag was waved.

Putting everything into his single lap effort, Van der Linde crossed the line to take second place but only held it for a second before Lucas Auer came from nowhere to grab his tenth career DTM pole position with a lap of 1m32.414s. Marco Wittmann reclaimed his place in second and Liam Lawson took third place on the grid with Ferrari teammate, Alex Albon next to him on the grid in fourth place.

At the end, Van der Linde took fifth so will at least be in the fight at the start of this afternoon’s race.

Please consider making a donation so we can keep bringing you our best content from the racetrack.