Joshua Dürksen and Gabriele Mini kept their nerve in a tense ADAC Formula 4 qualifying session at the Hockenheimring to claim the Pirelli Pole Position Award. Right at the last moment of Q1, Dürksen posted the fastest lap to book pole position for Race 1. Mini went fastest in Q2 to qualify on pole for the second race which will also be contested tomorrow. Dürksen and Mini were each rewarded with a pair of Pirelli skis. Both races (11:00 CEST and 16:00 CEST) will be shown live on free-to-air TV channel SPORT1 and on SPORT1+. All races can be watched online as a livestream with German and English commentary on SPORT1.de, youtube.com/adac and adac.de/motorsport.

Qualifying was ultimately decided by margins of thousandths of a second, as had already been intimated by the closeness of the free practice sessions. The lead swung back and forth over and over again, as session-winning lap times were repeatedly ruled out due to breaches of the track limits. At the end of Q1, Dürksen’s greater experience in the series paid dividends: at his final attempt, the 16-year-old Berliner leapt to the top of the timesheet and secured the Pirelli Pole Position Award for the first race.

Dürksen’s time of 1:41.354 minutes was 0.108 seconds faster than that of Italian teenage Mini (Prema Powerteam). Finland’s Elias Seppänen (US Racing) and Van Amersfoort driver Jak Crawford will start the race from the second row of the grid. Current championship leader Jonny Edgar had to settle for fifth place alongside Victor Bernier from France. On row four in Race 1 will be Oliver Bearman and Francesco Pizzi ahead of Sebastian Montoya and ADAC Sports Foundation protégé Tim Tramnitz from Hamburg.

Q2 was likewise a seesaw affair, with 15-year-old Mini setting the best time very late in the session. His time of 1:41.128 minutes was significantly faster than Dürksen a few minutes earlier. Bearman narrowly missed out on pole by a margin of 0.061 seconds. The second row of the grid for Race 2 has been exclusively booked for US Racing, with Tramnitz starting alongside Vladislav Lomko.

Jonny Edgar will be feeling frustrated about qualifying fifth for the second time in one day after winning three of the first six races of the season. Alongside him on the third row of the grid is Montoya, son of the ex-Formula 1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya. Bernier took seventh place ahead of Dürksen who, unlike his main opponents, was unable to improve in the second session. Dino Beganovic qualified ninth ahead of Crawford. The only female contestant in this year’s ADAC High-Speed Academy is Hamda Al Qubaisi. She qualified 16th and 15th on her first outing in the series. The starting grid for the third race on Sunday (11:00 CEST) will be determined by reversing the results of the Top 8 from Race 2.