Winward Mercedes driver Maro Engel secured his fourth career DTM pole position with a time of 1m27.403s in qualifying for the 2026 season opener at Spielberg.
Despite the major Balance of Performance (BoP) changes before qualifying, Mercedes-AMG maintained its strength at the Red Bull Ring, with Engel even beating Rene Rast’s previous qualifying record of 1m27.671s from 2023.
Engel only learned he was on pole position in parc ferme. “My radio stopped working in the last few laps – I couldn’t transmit or hear anything,” Engel told ran.de. “I knew it was a good lap, but you never really know where you stand in detail. The best way to start the season.”
The 40-year-old driver, driving a Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the Ravenol livery, edged out McLaren youngster Ben Dorr by a mere 0.015s to claim the top spot. Dorr had already dominated testing and made a better start to the season than his team-mate Timo Glock, who finished ninth, 0.370s behind.
“I felt very comfortable – also yesterday, on all the training days we’ve had in recent weeks,” the 21-year-old from Frankfurt told ran.de. “I was able to improve step by step, to get used to the car, which is a huge advantage.”
Dorr almost secured his second DTM pole position after last year’s Sachsenring success. “Of course, first place would have been even better, but let’s not complain,” he said with a grin. “Second place is fine too. And yes, I’m incredibly happy.”
Third place went to local hero Thomas Preining, who was 0.048s behind in his equally strong Porsche. “I actually expected less,” shrugged the Austrian “Grello” driver. “We didn’t have an easy day yesterday and made a few minor set-up changes overnight. The car is running really well, the lap was great, and I think we have a fantastic starting position for the race.”
Behind them came cars from Mercedes-AMG and Porsche: local hero and runner-up Lucas Auer finished fourth in the Landgraf Mercedes (+0.203s).
Fifth place went to rookie Bastian Buus (+0.247s) in the Land Porsche, sixth place was taken by Engel’s team-mate Jules Gounon (+0.261s) and seventh place was held by the second Manthey Porsche driver, Ricardo Feller (+0.270s).
BMW and Lamborghini suffered a disappointment: the best driver for the Munich-based manufacturer was Kelvin van der Linde (+0.547s) in eleventh place, while Marco Wittmann (+0.758s) finished in 15th place.
“We had a very difficult pre-season test,” Kelvin van der Linde, who is returning after a year-long DTM break, points out, referring to the technical problems. “I just didn’t get enough laps in. Yesterday was also extremely difficult for me.” Therefore, the German-South African was satisfied with being “best of the rest.”
Meanwhile, the Lamborghini drivers were at the back of the field in their new Temerario GT3. The best-placed driver for the Italian marque was Grasser’s Mirko Bortolotti (+0.794s) in 17th place. Abt newcomer Luca Engstler finished 19th (+0.933s), followed by his team-mate Marco Mapelli (+1.520s) in 20th, and Grasser’s Maximilian Paul (+1.604s) in 21st and last place.
Qualifying results
All Stats
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