Philipp Eng secures final pole position of season in BMW

• BMW driver with best time in second qualifying at Hockenheim
• Lamborghini and Audi second and third
• SPORT1 will broadcast the final race of the season live at 1.00 pm

Hockenheim: BMW driver Philipp Eng (27, A, BMW Team Schnitzer) will line up on the very front of the grid at Hockenheim to get the 14th and last race of the ADAC GT Masters season under way. The Austrian beat Lamborghini driver Christian Engelhart (30, DEU, GRT Grasser Racing Team) by only four thousandths of a second to take his third pole position of the year. Third place went to Kelvin van der Linde (21, ZA, Aust Motorsport) in the best-placed Audi R8. SPORT1 will broadcast the last race of the season live and in full at 1.00 pm. It can also be watched online as live stream at sport1.de, adac.de/motorsport and youtube.com/adac.

The top position changed hands several times in a very exciting and close-fought session that started with a delay of an hour-and-a-half because of fog and was shortened to 15 minutes. Philipp Eng won through in the end, setting best time of 1.37.511 minutes. The gap of 0.004 seconds on the second-fastest driver, Christian Engelhart in the Lamborghini, was the smallest of any qualifying held this season. Having taken his third pole position of the year after Oschersleben and the Nürburgring, Eng now has the best position on the grid, from which he can secure second place in the overall standings of the ADAC GT Masters. In the run-up to the last race of the season, the Austrian is level on points with Audi drivers Connor De Phillippi (24, USA) & Christopher Mies (28, DEU, both Montaplast by Land-Motorsport)) and behind Corvette driver Jules Gounon (22, F, Callaway Competition), who has already got the championship in the bag. Last year's champions will start the race from P11 on the grid. Eng: "I'm very pleased with my pole position. We didn't have the best of days yesterday. I made a bad move. That's not really my style. Sorry about that. I wanted to give something back to the team and the whole race series by taking best time. I'm now looking forward to the race and hope that I can still secure second place in the overall standings," said the former champion.

The two Audis of Kelvin van der Linde and Christopher Haase (29, DEU, Montaplast by Land-Motorsport) placed third and fourth respectively behind Engelhart. Works driver Sven Müller (25, DEU, Precote Herberth Motorsport) in the best-placed Porsche took fifth place from Mirco Bortolotti in the second Lamborghini Huracán fielded by GRT Grasser Racing Team.

Newly crowned champion Gounon and his partner Daniel Keilwitz (28, DEU), who was at the wheel of the Corvette C7 in qualifying, will start the race in 14th place. Just one second covered the 15 fastest drivers in the last qualifying of the season.