Tom Kristensen put in a commanding performance in DTM qualifying at Barcelona to take pole position for Sunday's race.

The Audi driver edged Paul di Resta by 0.064 seconds in the four-way pole position shootout, but his best lap came in the previous segment where he blitzed the field to earn himself the best track position for Q4.

Martin Tomczyk took third on the grid in his Audi, while Bruno Spengler had to settle for fourth after his car appeared to suffer a mechanical problem as he completed his lap. The Canadian's C-class sounded rough as he crossed the line, and just a couple of corners later he came to a halt out on track.

Tomczyk's performance could prove crucial in the championship, as he only made it into Q4 at the last moment, knocking out title hopeful Gary Paffett.

Paffett, who was fourth before Tomczyk's final lap, had already driven to the end of the pitlane to queue up for the pole shootout, where he would have been looking to put several cars between himself and his title rivals Timo Scheider and Mattias Ekstrom.

But by being knocked down to fifth, the 2005 champion will instead line up with the Audi pair directly behind him on the grid in sixth and seventh places.

Alexandre Premat was the only driver of a 2008-spec car to make Q3, narrowly beating his Phoenix Audi team-mate Oliver Jarvis to that honour.

Pos  Driver              Car       Time
 1.  Tom Kristensen      Audi      1m06.825s
 2.  Paul di Resta       Mercedes  1m06.889s
 3.  Martin Tomczyk      Audi      1m07.043s
 4.  Bruno Spengler      Mercedes  1m07.182s
 5.  Gary Paffett        Mercedes  1m06.806s
 6.  Timo Scheider       Audi      1m06.839s
 7.  Mattias Ekstrom     Audi      1m07.015s
 8.  Alexandre Premat    Audi      1m07.143s
 9.  Oliver Jarvis       Audi      1m07.311s
10.  Maro Engel          Mercedes  1m07.325s
11.  Ralf Schumacher     Mercedes  1m07.332s
12.  Markus Winkelhock   Audi      1m07.391s
13.  Mike Rockenfeller   Audi      1m07.471s
14.  Jamie Green         Mercedes  1m07.706s
15.  Mathias Lauda       Mercedes  1m07.915s
16.  Susie Stoddart      Mercedes  1m07.988s
17.  Katherine Legge     Audi      1m08.234s
18.  Johannes Seidlitz   Audi      1m08.806s
19.  Tomas Kostka        Audi      1m08.849s
20.  Christian Bakkerud  Audi      1m09.129s