Paffett led the way in the preliminary qualifying session too, from which the top 10 proceed to the Super Pole, with a time of 1m52.173s, 0.056secs clear of Audi's Tom Kristensen. Reigning Champion Mattias Ekstrom was third fastest in his Audi A4, ahead of the leading Opel Vectra GTS of Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who just pipped teammate Manuel Reuter for that honour in the dying seconds.

Former F1 racers Bernd Schneider (Mercedes), Allan McNish (Audi) and Spa victor Mika Hakkinen (Mercedes) were next up, but Jean Alesi's Mercedes was knocked out of the top 10 run-off because of teammate Schneider's late flyer.

Super Pole was a thriller, despite a brief rain shower before it began, which made life tricky for the early runners.

Hakkinen was the first to register a seriously quick effort, with a 1:52.610 laptime that the following McNish, Schneider and Reuter were unable to better. But the Finn's dream of repeating his Spa pole was dashed when Frentzen bettered his time by three-tenths.

Now it was Frentzen's turn to dare to dream of pole, as Ekstrom slid wide on a corner and failed to beat him, as did Kristensen. But Paffett shattered his hopes, despite being a fraction slower by the second split point, with a Herculean final sector netting pole by 0.180.

Frentzen will start from his first ever DTM front row in second, ahead of Kristensen, Ekstrom, Hakkinen, Reuter, McNish and Schneider. Jamie Green (Mercedes) and Martin Tomczyk round out the top ten.