Audi driver Dennis Marschall was the fastest man in the second ADAC GT Masters qualifying at the Red Bull Ring. The 24-year-old’s pole position is his fourth in the series.

For much of qualifying, it looked as though Corvette driver Marvin Kirchhöfer was going to secure the front spot on the grid. The man from Leipzig laid down a marker midway through the session with a time of 1:29.639 minutes. He then improved his lap time to first 1:29.131 minutes, then 1:28.895 minutes. However, Marschall hit back with four minutes of qualifying remaining: a time of 1:28.873 minutes took him into first place, and he then went even faster with a lap of 1:28.842 minutes. That put him 53 thousandths of a second clear of Kirchhöfer at the end of the session. As a reward Marschall receives an exclusive Pirelli suitcase. This was Audi’s first pole position at the Red Bull Ring.

“Qualifying was virtually perfect,” said Marschall, who won the Pirelli Junior competition alongside Kim-Luis Schramm in Saturday’s race. “We did not reckon on getting pole. We were expecting P5, P6 or P7, but not P1. As such, we are obviously delighted now. You could see the joy in the garage. We made a few changes to the car since yesterday and that paid dividends. Our goal is the podium. We are lacking a little top speed compared to the Corvette, but we are very strong in the other sectors. We will give it our all.”

Behind Kirchhöfer and his team-mate Jeffrey Schmidt was another Audi – that of Dries Vanthoor and Dennis Lind from Team WRT. Vanthoor was 0.190 seconds slower than the fastest time. Fourth place went to the fastest Lamborghini, run by the local favourites from the GRT Grasser Racing Team, with a time of 1:29.047 minutes. Mathieu Jaminet and Michael Ammermüller, championship leaders and winners of the Saturday race, start from fifth place when the race gets underway at 13:30 today.

The fastest Austrian in the field was Porsche driver Klaus Bachler from Precote Herberth Motorsport in tenth place. He shares the driving duties in the 911 GT3 R with works driver Simona De Silvestro.