Augusto Farfus upstaged DTM title pretenders Gary Paffett and Bruno Spengler to claim his second straight pole position ahead of the season finale at Hockenheim.
Farfus finished up 0.12 seconds clear in Q3 of Paffett and Spengler, who were separated by just 0.007s – the Mercedes man and points leader just getting the upper hand. Paffett has a three point advantage over BMW ace Spengler going into the final race.
Mattias Ekstrom was the best of the Audis in fourth, and will start one place ahead of the highly-impressive Joey Hand, who edged out BMW Team RMG teammate and outgoing champion Martin Tomczyk for fifth.
Spengler’s Schnitzer BMW teammate Dirk Werner was seventh ahead of the Audis of Timo Scheider and Edoardo Mortara, while Jamie Green didn’t help his already slim title chances with the last place in the top ten.
Those disposed of in Q2 were Filipe Albuquerque, Mike Rockenfeller, Christian Vietoris, Andy Priaulx, Adrien Tambay and Rahel Frey. Ralf Schumacher failed to make it out of Q1, as did Mercedes rookies Robert Wickens and Roberto Merhi and Audi’s Miguel Molina.
Scottish duo David Coulthard and Susie Wolff will start their final DTM races from alongside each other on the 11th and last row of the grid.
