By alley - Sep 11, 2016, 8:31 AM ET

DTM: Auer on top again in Nurburgring qualifying

Mucke Motorsport's Lucas Auer celebrated his 22nd birthday in style with pole position for the second DTM race at the Nurburgring.

The Mercedes driver set the initial pace early on in the session with a time of 1m23.064s, and he bettered it later on, with his pole time clocking in at 1m22.728s.

Auer also set the fastest time in Saturday's qualifying session, but dropped to sixth on the grid after serving a five-place grid penalty he picked up for receiving a third driving standards warning at the previous round

Championship leader Marco Wittmann – who inherited pole from Auer on Saturday and went on to win the opening race – was second fastest again on Sunday, the first of a quartet of BMWs inside the top five.

Wittmann only narrowly missed out on pole by 0.030s, but he is again well positioned to increase his advantage over championship rival Robert Wickens. The Canadian struggled with pace during Saturday's race, finishing ninth from 13th on the grid, but endured an even tougher session on Sunday, lining up 17th for the one-hour race.

Bruno Spengler didn't set a lap time until the later stages of the session but his patience paid off, with third on the grid the reward, just ahead of BMW stablemates Tom Blomqvist and Augusto Farfus.

Audi trio Edoardo Mortara, Jamie Green, and Miguel Molina line up sixth, seventh and eighth respectively, with Daniel Juncadella and Mattias Ekstrom rounding off the top 10.

Adrien Tambay set the 21st-fastest time, but a grid penalty for a collision with Farfus in Saturday's race means he will start from the back.

QUALIFYING RESULTS:

Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Gap	Laps
1	Lucas Auer	Mucke	Mercedes	1m22.728s	8
2	Marco Wittmann	RMG	BMW	0.030s	8
3	Bruno Spengler	MTEK	BMW	0.115s	10
4	Tom Blomqvist	RBM	BMW	0.168s	10
5	Augusto Farfus	MTEK	BMW	0.170s	10
6	Edoardo Mortara	Abt	Audi	0.190s	10
7	Jamie Green	Rosberg	Audi	0.215s	10
8	Miguel Molina	Abt	Audi	0.220s	10
9	Daniel Juncadella	HWA	Mercedes	0.268s	8
10	Mattias Ekstrom	Abt	Audi	0.279s	11
11	Gary Paffett	ART	Mercedes	0.302s	8
12	Felix Rosenqvist	ART	Mercedes	0.303s	8
13	Timo Glock	RMG	BMW	0.362s	9
14	Nico Muller	Abt	Audi	0.402s	11
15	Paul Di Resta	HWA	Mercedes	0.405s	8
16	Timo Scheider	Phoenix	Audi	0.416s	10
17	Robert Wickens	HWA	Mercedes	0.454s	8
18	Christian Vietoris	Mucke	Mercedes	0.476s	10
19	Maxime Martin	RBM	BMW	0.651s	6
20	Mike Rockenfeller	Phoenix	Audi	0.654s	10
21	Adrien Tambay	Rosberg	Audi	0.673s	10
22	Antonio Felix da Costa	Schnitzer	BMW	0.763s	9
23	Martin Tomczyk	Schnitzer	BMW	0.789s	10
24	Maximilian Gotz	HWA	Mercedes	0.859s	8