Spielberg – Q2: Maro Engel dances in the rain and takes pole

In the hills of Styria, the bright sunshine of Saturday gave way to heavy rain this Sunday. In difficult conditions at Spielberg, it was Maro Engel who did well by signing his first pole position of the season. The German driver was the most comfortable with a time of 1'40"776, ahead of Maximilian Götz (+0"230) and the winner of the day before, Nick Cassidy (+0"974). The championship leader, Sheldon van der Linde, took the 6th time (+1″109) but will only start in 15th place after application of a penalty for not respecting the track limits in Race 1. The South African will be sandwiched between René Rast (10th, +1″586) and Mirko Bortolotti (23rd, +3″999), his two main rivals.

The session was disrupted by three red flags. The first from the first seconds of qualifying with a big accident for Mikaël Grenier. The Quebecer underwent aquaplanning and destroyed his Mercedes even before the start of his flying lap. The GruppeM Racing team driver will not be at the start of Race 2 on Sunday afternoon. The second red flag was due to Dev Gore who crashed into the Tec-Pro 5 minutes from the end of the session. Finally, it was Ricardo Feller who found himself stuck in the gravel trap less than 2 minutes from the checkered flag. The incident prematurely ended the qualifying session at Spielberg.

The ranking of Q2 at Spielberg: 

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