Liam Lawson has claimed his first ever pole position in the DTM championship.
After showing scorching pace in the final practice yesterday, the young kiwi was able to up his game even more for qualifying and enter the 1.27s.
It all seemed locked in with 5 minutes to go. Kelvin Van der Linde the current championship leader was on a flying lap and came across the line in provisional 3rd place but then dropping to 8th.
Kelvin was then heard over the team radio explaining he had reached his limit. “That was everything I had”. But it wouldn’t be enough as he was half a second slower than Lawson in 1st
Qualifying had reached its end but there were still drivers on flying laps. The likes of Sheldon Van der Linde and Alex Albon were looking to better the speedy Kiwi but were not able to match his pace.
The end of the session came to an unfortunately dramatic end as Maximillian Paul completely misjudged the final corner in his Lamborghini flying off into the gravel trap and then into the barriers.
Thankfully he was OK, and he exited the car unharmed.
Lawson’s first ever pole position will not only set him up well for the race but also adds 3 championship points to his tally for this weekend. The early points means that he all ready moves ahead of Albon in the standings into 4th place.
Liam was smiling and seemed joyful when he exited the car and went for the post session media questions. He told the interviewer:
“Nice to start the weekend like this, we need to continue it like this”.
“We knew our car was going be set up well for this course. It sits nice and flat through the high-speed corners”.
“We need to work now to convert this into some great points in the race”.
A fantastic result for the Kiwi and finally a spell of good luck after his less than ideal previous round at the Nürburgring. What can he do during the race?
Here is how the drivers qualified for race 1:
Featured image source: twitter.com/liamlawson30