Bachler hits back: Pole position for Porsche at Sachsenring

• Second pole in a row for Klaus Bachler, third-placed driver in standings
• Porsche and Bentley share front row
• Championship leaders Ludwig/Asch and main rivals, Baumann/Klingmann, on row six

Hohenstein-Ernstthal. Klaus Bachler (24, AUT/GW IT Racing Team Schütz Motorsport) on the attack. The Austrian in the Porsche 911 took pole position for the second ADAC GT Masters race at the Sachsenring. Bachler secured his second consecutive pole position for Sunday’s race after a tricky first round and a P9 finish on Saturday. The Bentley Continental of Fabian Hamprecht (20, DEU/Bentley Team HTP), who produced his best ever qualifying result, will line up next to the third-placed driver in the standings, Bachler. "We were unlucky in yesterday’s race but have been rewarded today," said Bachler with delight at securing the best position on the grid for the twelfth round of the season. The race will be broadcast live on Sunday at 13:00 CET on SPORT1.

Worrying moment for second-placed driver in standings, Klingmann

Bachler had the right strategy in qualifying. He is currently ranked third in the standings and posted best time early in the session when there was little traffic out on track. Qualifying was stopped briefly six minutes before the end when Tomas Enge (38, CZ/Reiter Engineering) spun into the gravel in the Lamborghini Gallardo. None of the other competitors was able to beat the time set by the yellow Porsche on the restart.

Bachler: “Going out on track early was the right strategy. We were then helped by the red flag coming out, otherwise, things would have been very close, for sure.”

No less than four Audis will line up behind the Porsche and the Bentley. The R8s of Kelvin van der Linde (19, ZA), Christer Jöns (28, DEU/both C.Abt Racing), Edward Sandström (36, S/kfzteile24 MS RACING) and Nicki Thiim (26, DK/C.Abt Racing) will be in grid positions three, four, five and six for the race. Thiim qualified his Audi R8 in P3 on the grid but has a three-place grid penalty still to serve for an infringement of the rules at the Nürburgring fixture.

Klingmann (25, DEU/BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert), Saturday’s race winner in the BMW Z4 GT3, had a worrying moment. Klingmann spun on his last lap and grazed the crash barriers briefly. The BMW driver will start from grid position 13 in front of team-mate Uwe Alzen (48, DEU/BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert). So, Klingmann in 13th place on the grid will be next to championship leader Luca Ludwig (26, DEU/Team Zakspeed), who will be lining up in P12 in the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG.