| The Paul Position
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| Paul Di Resta (AMG Mercedes C-Class) will start Sunday’s fifth round of the 2010 DTM at Brands Hatch from pole position, like 2009. In the single-lap qualifying, last year’s winner set a time of 41.278sec and was 53 thousandths of a second faster than overall leader Bruno Spengler (Mercedes-Benz Bank AMG C-Class) who qualified second. It is Paul’s fourth DTM career pole position and the second of the season after Lausitzring. For Mercedes-Benz it is the third pole of five races at Brands Hatch and the 102nd out of 327 DTM races since 1988. Ralf Schumacher (Laureus AMG Mercedes C-Class) who qualified for the single lap “shoot-out” the second time after his Norisring pole, was fourth fastest with 41.751sec. Gary Paffett (Salzgitter AMG Mercedes C-Class), winner of the two races this year including the Zandvoort event two weeks ago, will start his home race fifth on the grid with a time of 41.291sec. Qualifying, part 1: Paul Di Resta was fastest with a 41.129sec. Susie Stoddart (TV Spielfilm AMG Mercedes C-Class) qualified 16th with a 41.755sec and missed Q2 by 94 thousandths of a second. CongFu Cheng (stern AMG Mercedes C-Class) ended up 17th with a 41.784sec. Qualifying, part 2: With a time of 41.003sec, Paul was fastest again – the 2009 pole sitter was about half a second faster than his best time last year. Jamie Green (Junge Sterne AMG Mercedes C-Class) was ninth with a 41.446sec; Maro Engel (GQ AMG Mercedes C-Class) came home 12th with a 41.544sec and David Coulthard (Deutsche Post AMG Mercedes C-Class) qualified 14th with a 41.826sec. His time was more than half a second better than last year’s DTM lap record (42.387sec) by Di Resta.
Paul Di Resta (AMG Mercedes C-Class) pole position (41.278): „This is fantastic. We are in Brands Hatch, my friends and family are here and I am on pole position. I thank my team for a great job. In the end, I made a mistake, but I was still fast enough for pole which is super. Tomorrow I will give it my all to end up in the same place after the race – like last year.” Bruno Spengler (Mercedes-Benz Bank AMG C-Class) second (41.330): „It is particularly important for me to qualify at the front, because I don’t like this circuit so much and overtaking is not easy here. I thank my team for a perfectly prepared car.” Ralf Schumacher (Laureus AMG Mercedes C-Class) fourth (41.751): „I am happy to be in the single-lap qualifying again. My last qualifying lap was not the best one and maybe a better result was possible. Tomorrow I want to score as many points as possible.” Gary Paffett (Salzgitter AMG Mercedes C-Class) fifth (41.291): “I am somewhat disappointed because I wanted to start my home race further up the grid, as overtaking on this short track is difficult. But I’m sure our guys will find a good strategy and then everything is possible.“ Jamie Green (Junge Sterne AMG Mercedes C-Class) ninth (41.446): „Q3 was possible; however, I struggled a bit with the balance of my C-Class and was not able to move up. But the race will be 98 laps long and a lot can happen.“ Maro Engel (GQ AMG Mercedes C-Class) 12th (41.544): „I am not happy with 12th place on the grid. I had problems at the last corner and was not able to go faster.” David Coulthard (Deutsche Post AMG Mercedes C-Class) 14th (41.826): “My last two sets of tyres were completely different from the ones I had before and even on my out-lap I struggled to keep the car on track. So it was not possible for me to improve.” Susie Stoddart (TV-Spielfilm AMG Mercedes C-Class) 16th (41.755): “I was fast throughout the weekend; however, the lap times here are very close together and I was just not fast enough to move up, therefore, I am disappointed.“ CongFu Cheng (stern AMG Mercedes C-Class) 17th (41.784): “Although I improved by about one and a half tenths of a second compared to this morning’s free practice, my car’s balance wasn’t perfect yet and I lost a bit of time. We will work hard to improve for tomorrow.“ Norbert Haug, Vice President Mercedes-Benz Motorsport: “A great qualifying with a super lap by Paul Di Resta – which, however, almost went wrong at the very last corner. Anyway, it was good enough for the pole for Paul like last year before he won his home race here. With Bruno Spengler in second, Ralf Schumacher in fourth and Gary Paffett in fifth place, Mercedes-Benz has a good basis for tomorrow’s race – thank you for that to the HWA team headed by Gerhard Ungar. Even with four C-Class cars starting from the top five positions, we by far do not feel on Saturday like the winners of Sunday.” | |
