As was the case for Friday practice, drivers were faced with a wet track this Saturday morning. Renauer coped best with the conditions. He took the lead in the second half of the half-hour qualifying session for the first time with a 2.01.465. He then went on to post a time of 2.00.789 minutes and was ultimately the only driver to crack the 2.01-minute benchmark figure, for which he won his first Pirelli Pole Position Award of the season. To reward his success, the German received an exclusive espresso coffee machine from Pirelli. This was Renauer’s fifth pole position in the Super Sports Car League.

"The car felt great," said Renauer, who is currently fourth in the standings and is sharing the drive in the '911' with Klaus Bachler this weekend. "It was super slippery and a lot of fun. We are delighted with pole position and hope that the race will also go well now. We will focus on what we have to do and intend to score a decent haul of points. Only a win will do. It would be great if it stayed wet but dry weather is forecast, which should serve to totally mix things up again, because we have only driven in the wet so far this weekend."

Renauer still has a good chance of reducing his points deficit in the overall standings, because his main rivals for the title will be starting from much further down the field. Christian Engelhart and Michael Ammermüller are second overall in the standings and originally secured ninth place in the SSR Porsche. However, their time was voided, as they posted their best lap under the yellow flags, so they will now have to start out from P12. Championship leaders Patric Niederhauser and Kelvin van der Linde (Rutronik Racing) finished 14th in the Audi. Currently third in the standings, Luca Stolz and Maro Engel qualified next in P15, driving the Toksport Mercedes-AMG.

Fellow Mercedes-AMG drivers, Indy Dontje and Maximilian Götz (Mann-Filter Team HTP-Winward) on the other hand secured a place on the front row. Dontje was 0.288 seconds slower than Renauer. P3 went to Maximilian Hackländer in the Aust Audi R8 with a 2.01.125. Partnered with Nicolaj Rogivue, Hackländer was in the Top Three all through qualifying and secured the best starting position of the season for his team. Kim-Luis Schramm and Christopher Mies (Montaplast by Land Motorsport), also in an Audi, were fourth. Jannes Fittje and David Jahn in the Porsche 911 GT3 R prepared by Küs Team75 Bernhard completed the Top Five.

The eleventh ADAC GT Masters race of the season will start today at the later time of 15:15 CET. SPORT1 will broadcast the race live and in full.