Christjohannes Schreiber underlined his FIA European Touring Car Cup title credentials by claiming his first pole of the ETCC season on the toughest track of them all, the legendary 25.378-kilometre Nürburgring Nordschleife.

There was less than two minutes left on the clock when Switzerland’s Schreiber, the ETCC points leader, posted his session-topping effort in his Rikli Motorsport Honda Civic, edging Křenek Motorsport SEAT driver Petr Fulín, from Czech Republic, by 0.079s.

In doing so, Schreiber became the third different driver in as many races to claim pole, extending his title advantage by scoring three bonus points.

“This is like a dream because I wasn’t expecting that, really not,” said Schreiber. “We struggled a lot with the car at first, we tried to find some solutions and we obviously found something. The car became much more drivable, I trusted it more and that is the basis to be fast on the Nordschleife because if you don’t trust yourself in the car it’s impossible to go fast.”

Fábio Mota hit back from the broken driveshaft that limited his running in Free Practice to claim third, his first ETCC qualifying top three since his first in Slovakia last season. Behind the Portuguese LEIN Racing SEAT driver, Macedonia’s Igor Stefanovski was fourth in his self-run SEAT with Norbert Nagy one place ahead of Zengő Motorsport Hungarian team-mate Zsolt Dávid Szabó. German driver Andreas Pfister was seventh in his older-specification SEAT with Serbian Mladen Lalušić eighth and Anett György, from Hungary, ninth.

While Schreiber celebrated his first ETCC pole, team-mate Peter Rikli failed to set a time due to a mechanical issue on his Honda. Bulgaria’s Plamen Kralev also didn’t run due to damage inflicted to his Audi when he crashed heavily in Free Practice 2 this morning.

Saturday’s races will be held over three laps each with Race 1 scheduled to begin at 11h20 local time and Race 2 due to start at 12h45. ETCC drivers will share the track with their World Touring Car Championship counterparts on a split grid.