Gary Paffett leads all-British front row in Brands Hatch qualifying
Gary Paffett has taken pole position for the second race of the weekend at Brands Hatch, setting a new qualifying record in his Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM, leading Mercedes-AMG team-mates Paul di Resta and Pascal Wehrlein.
Di Resta had set the best time during the first run with a time of 1:18.021, faster than HWA Mercedes-AMG team-mate Daniel Juncadella’s time from yesterday, with di Resta just ahead of the BMW of Augusto Farfus and Jamie Green’s Rosberg Audi RS 5 DTM.
After a short intermission as the cars adjusted their set-ups, the field headed out for another run with five minutes to go, with Robin Frijns leaping up to second on his first run in his Abt Audi RS 5 DTM, but it was Gary Paffett’s flying run that launched him into pole position the first driver under 1:18 with a time of 1:17.948.
Di Resta had to settle for second, with 2015 champion Pascal Wehrlein making a late improvement to go third, securing a 1-2-3 lockout for Mercedes-AMG.
René Rast improved to go fourth fastest in his Rosberg Audi RS 5 DTM, with Lucas Auer fifth in his Mercedes, with Frijns demoted to sixth.
Augusto Farfus’ BMW, Loїc Duval’s Audi and the BMWs of Marco Wittmann’s BMW and Philipp Eng completed the top ten.
“It’s incredible. We made some changes to the car, and the car felt really good,” said Paffett. “My first lap wasn’t really good and I wasn’t confident I was going to get pole, but I got into the lap and I pushed and pushed.”
The second race of the weekend takes place at 13:30 BST (14:30 CEST).
