Audi Sport Team Rosberg’s René Rast pipped Mercedes-AMG’s Gary Paffett as the chequered flag was already waving over the Nürburgring to take his first pole position of the DTM season.

The entire field took to the track at the green light, as tyres are expected to take longer to warm up to temperature due to the new minimum tyre pressures set from this race for safety reasons.

In fact, it took four laps for drivers to start lapping at the same pace as in second free practice.

Drivers returned to the pits for fresh tyres and the final adjustments, returning to the track with six minutes on the clock.

Hostilities opened with one minute to go, with Paffett climbing up to the top of the classification, but he quickly beaten by BMW Team RBM’s Bruno Spengler.

The Briton managed to extract one last good lap from his tyres, but it would be Rast, with a blistering final lap of 1:22.203, who ended up 0.028 seconds ahead of the Briton.

Spengler was third, 0.078 seconds off the pace, followed by Mercedes-AMG’s Lucas Auer. The BMW pair of Marco Wittmann and Philipp Eng came next, with the Austrian two-tenths behind Rast.

Mercedes-AMG’s trio formed by Daniel Juncadella, Paul di Resta and Pascal Wehrlein followed, with the championship leader never able to get into the top positions during the session. BMW Team RMG’s Augusto Farfus completed the top ten, 0.367 seconds off the pace.

The start of Race 1 is scheduled for 13:30 CEST.