Canada’s Robert Wickens claims first season pole position for Mercedes-Benz

A happy Wickens

Robert Wickens secured himself pole position for the Norisring DTM race. In qualifying for the fourth season round, the Canadian reached a lap time of 47.883 seconds with his DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupe and will thus start from first place on the grid for the second time in his DTM career. "I simply like this track. Like last year, I am on pole position here. I can’t thank Mercedes-Benz enough for the fact that we are in first place. The team has put in many night shifts to make this happen. For me, this is a special moment because my father is on site to support me for the first time in a long while," the overjoyed 25-year-old said. His fellow Mercedes-Benz driver Paul Di Resta was only 0.093 seconds slower and will be starting from the front row alongside Wickens.

British driver Jamie Green emerged Audi's spearhead in qualifying. In the session, the 32-year old completed his best lap of the 2.3 kilometers long track in Nuremberg in 47.995 seconds and thus ended up in third place. The Audi driver already scored four DTM race wins at Norisring and is also totally confident for this year’s race: "I am very happy with my performance and I am looking forward to the race. We have a strong car that is up for anything. I am curious to find out what kind of weather conditions will await us on Sunday. Both in the dry and in the wet, we should be strong," Green said.

Points' leader Marco Wittmann will be starting from eighth place into his home race at Norisring. In the final qualifying heat, the BMW driver came within 0.327 seconds of the time set by pole-sitter Robert Wickens. “This was our limit; I simply couldn’t do any more. Unlike our rivals, we are lacking top speed, which particularly becomes apparent on the straights. In the race, I want to make it through the opening stage and then score a point finish," the fastest driver of a BMW M4 DTM said.

For reigning DTM champion, Mike Rockenfeller, qualifying was a rather disappointing affair. With his Audi RS 5 DTM, he only ended up twelfth. In the battle for the title, this is a setback for points’ leader Marco Wittmann’s fiercest rival.

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