A perfect result in Zandvoort for the Emil Frey Ferrari squad in a challenging, red-flagged qualifying session: Following a disappointing season opener at Spielberg, rookie Matteo Cairoli secured his first pole position in only his third DTM qualifying. Clocking a 1:32.974 in sunny conditions, the Italian led the field.
“It is definitely a great joy for me,” Cairoli told ran.de, after rivals had already warned about his pace during the winter. “Zandvoort is a track where I haven’t been racing so much and it’s quite complicated, I would say. It’s good that we finally made the car work.”
Team-mate Thierry Vermeulen finished in second place, 0.171 seconds behind Cairoli, who joined the team this year as Jack Aitken’s successor. However, the 29-year-old Italian missed the British driver’s 2024 qualifying record (1:31.762) by 1.212 seconds.
Auer: “Both Ferraris are on another planet”
Cairoli’s Emil Frey team-mate Vermeulen, who is supported by Max Verstappen and is celebrating his home race at Zandvoort, also breathed a sigh of relief after the strong result: “We had a lot of problems with my car yesterday,” he admitted to ran.de. “The team was here until three in the morning, but the car was amazing to drive; the balance was really good.”
In third place was runner-up Lucas Auer (+0.246), the top Mercedes-AMG driver, for whom the front row was out of reach. “Both Ferraris have been on another planet since yesterday,” said the Austrian Landgraf driver in an interview with ran.de.
Fourth place went to Land-Porsche rookie Bastian Buus (+0.428), proving his team’s strong form and once again outperforming the Manthey drivers. Thomas Preining (+0.808) and Ricardo Feller (+0.870) could manage no better than tenth and eleventh.
Technical drama for Kelvin van der Linde triggers red flag
Youngster Ben Dörr (+0.435) sits in a promising fifth place in the Dörr-McLaren. He was significantly faster than his team-mate Timo Glock, who clearly struggled, finishing 20th with a massive 5.269-second gap to the front.
Things went even worse for Schubert BMW driver Kelvin van der Linde: The German-South African lost oil immediately after the start of qualifying on his outlap, causing the session to be red-flagged. Ordinarily, his best lap time would have been deleted, but since van der Linde took no further part in the session, it was irrelevant – he will have to start from the back of the grid.
The 27-minute interruption disrupted the rhythm for most teams, as almost all drivers had already completed their “heat soak” – a process where tires are warmed up via the brakes. Repeating this heat cycle a second time usually has a negative impact on tire performance.
Kelvin van der Linde and the technical gremlins: “Extremely bitter”
Why did van der Linde have to park his car? “We don’t know exactly yet,” said Rene Rast’s successor, who has been plagued by technical issues since the official test and the Spielberg opener, speaking to ran.de. “Of course, we saw there was a lot of oil on the track – so I’m really sorry for the other drivers, it definitely wasn’t intentional.”
He added that it was “extremely bitter, especially for me, because we’ve had technical issues many times this year.” Will the team get the car ready for the race? “Probably, the boys will manage it,” he noted. Team-mate Marco Wittmann also failed to reach the front, placing his BMW M4 GT3 Evo in twelfth.
Abt driver Engstler shows upward trend for Lamborghini
Lamborghini showed signs of improvement: Abt driver Luca Engstler (+0.567) qualified his Temerario GT3 in seventh, placing him directly ahead of eighth-placed DTM leader Maro Engel (+0.573).
Engstler was half a second faster than his team-mate Marco Mapelli (+1.081) in the new Lamborghini GT3. The car is still considered to be in its early stages of development and is currently running with a modified rear wing due to a special regulation.
Both Abt Lamborghinis finished ahead of the Grasser team: Maximilian Paul was 15th, 1.232 seconds back, while Mirko Bortolotti (1.345) could only manage 17th.
To make matters worse, Bortolotti was under investigation for driving unnecessarily slowly in the final sector, which hampered “Grello” driver Preining. The Stewards decided to take “no further action”. The race is scheduled to start at its usual time of 13:30.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: motorsport.com
