Mercedes‘ Gary Paffett will start the opening DTM Series race at Hockenheim from pole position.
Paffett set a time of 1m32.264 to start on pole ahead of the BMW duo of Marco Wittmann and Timo Glock.
The Briton set his benchmark during the early flying laps to go quicker than then pace setter Lucas Auer by two tenths of a second.
However, the lap was one and a half seconds slower than last season’s pole.
Austrian Auer will start from fourth place just ahead of 2015 champion and series returnee Pascal Wehrlein who completes the top five.
Augusto Farfus will start alongside the Mercedes of Wehrlein in sixth.
Edoardo Mortara and Bruno Spengler start seventh and eighth respectively.
Reigning champion René Rast takes the honours of being the lead Audi in ninth place as Joel Eriksson claims the final top ten position.
Mike Rockenfeller starts in eleventh place ahead of the Mercedes duo of Paul di Resta and Dani Juncadella.
The Audi of Nico Müller is to start from fourteenth, ahead of the slowest BMW of Philipp Eng.
Completing the grid is the Audi quartet of Loïc Duval, Robin Frijns, Mattias Ekström and Jamie Green.
The entire grid was split by just nine tenths of a second, promising a close fight between the teams.
Action for the first race of the 2018 DTM Series gets underway at 13.30 local time and will last 55 minutes plus one lap.
2018 DTM Series Hockenheim I Results – Qualifying 1
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