Double pole at the DTM home race at the Norisring! The Munich racing team SSR Performance celebrated a success across the board in qualifying on Sunday morning: Nicki Thiim drove his SSR Lamborghini to his first pole position in the traditional German series. The freshly crowned winner of the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps prevailed against his nine competitors in the split qualifying in Group 2.
Thiim needed 48.758 seconds for his fastest lap on the 2.162-kilometer street circuit – making the ‘Dane Train’ a few hundredths of a second faster than SSR teammate Mirko Bortolotti, who had previously secured the best time in Group 1. Thiim will therefore start today’s race (1:30 p.m. live on ProSieben) from pole position ahead of Bortolotti.
“After such a shitty season so far, we’ve finally got it together,” said 35-year-old Thiim in his usual open manner. “It’s just a relief to see that you’re not too old for this stuff.”
Bortolotti achieved a personal best time of 48.892 seconds during his 23 laps. “The car is completely destroyed on the right side, sorry about that,” Bortolotti radioed from his Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 as the flag fell, after a mirror had been lost after hitting the wall.
Bortolotti appeared wide awake on Sunday morning, although his night’s rest was disturbed: In his hotel in Nuremberg, where other paddock people were also booked, a fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, waking all the guests up. Bortolotti: “That was a very aggressive wake-up call in the middle of the night! Fortunately, nothing else happened.”
According to the qualifying mode, Maro Engel (Winward-Mercedes, second fastest in Group 2) and championship leader Kelvin van der Linde (Abt-Audi, second fastest in Group 1) took the second row of the grid in Sunday’s race before his 100th DTM race. Maximilian Paul (Paul-Lamborghini, third fastest in Group 2) and Luca Stolz (HRT-Mercedes, third fastest in Group 1) finished fifth and sixth.
Arjun Maini (HRT-Mercedes), Lucas Auer (Winward-Mercedes), Sheldon van der Linde (Schubert-BMW) and Saturday’s pole setter Jack Aitken (Emil-Frey-Ferrari) completed the top 10 on the starting grid in seventh to tenth places.
The temperatures in Nuremberg were just under 16 degrees (track: 18 degrees), significantly cooler than the day before, when the race took place at 30 degrees. Despite a light drizzle on Sunday morning, the track was dry on the racing line.
Rene Rast: Victory on Saturday, second to last starting row on Sunday
Saturday’s winner Rene Rast (Schubert-BMW) was disappointed. The three-time DTM champion did not manage to get beyond ninth place in Group 1, which was second to last, three tenths of a second behind leader Bortolotti. For Rast, who has been on the podium five times in a row at Norising and won on Saturday thanks to his brave tire strategy, this means starting from the second to last row.
“We tried a different strategy today than the rest of the field, but it didn’t work,” the Schubert-BMW driver explained to ProSieben. “We drove with used tires at the beginning, only to switch to the new tires halfway through the training session, but they didn’t work.”
Rast was also under observation by the race management during qualifying because he was said to have obstructed Jack Aitken’s Ferrari in Group 1. The incident was only dealt with by the stewards after the timed practice session.
BoP changes: More power for Audi, Porsche and Mercedes
On the night of Sunday, the SRO made its first adjustment to the Balance of Performance during the weekend. The two Audi R8 LMS GT3s from Abt Sportsline received a restrictor that was 0.5 millimeters larger (36.5 instead of 36.0 mm), but in return they gained an additional 5 kilograms of weight.
After the difficult Saturday, the Manthey-Porsche 911 GT3 R were allowed to unload 15 kilos and started Sunday with 1,290 kilograms. The Mercedes-AMG GT3s from HRT and Winward were also allowed to unload 10 kilos, at the same time the lambda value was slightly reduced as a result of a restrictor increase before the weekend.
Explained: How DTM qualifying works at the Norisring
Drawing up the starting grid at the Norisring is a tricky matter because the qualifying sessions on Saturday and Sunday were split into two groups to allow the 20 drivers as free laps as possible on the 2.162-kilometer-long track. This procedure has been in place since 2022 in the DTM at the only street race on the racing calendar.
And it works like this: The fastest driver from the combined group stage secured first place on the grid – in today’s case Thiim in Group 2. The best-placed driver from the other group – here Bortolotti in Group 1 – takes second place on the grid. The second fastest driver from the pole setter’s group takes P3, the second fastest driver from the other group P4, and so on.
Since the drivers from the second group (B) theoretically have an advantage due to the better grip conditions, the groups from Saturday were reversed for the qualifying on Sunday. Allocation to the two groups was based on the combined results from the two practice sessions on Friday: drivers in the even positions on the results list started in group A, drivers in the odd positions in group B. The allocation applies to Saturday and Sunday.