A great moment at the Nürburgring: At the 250th race of the ADAC GT Masters, Mercedes-AMG drivers David Schumacher (Salzburg) and Salman Owega (Cologne) from the Haupt Racing Team shone with their second win of the season. After the two youngsters had already won Saturday’s race, they completed the double pack in the anniversary race over the 40-minute sprint distance.
“It’s always special to win on an anniversary and to write your name in the history books. But the road to get there wasn’t easy, because we were under a lot of pressure from our competitors throughout. At the beginning, the extra weight helped us to get the tires to a good temperature. In the last ten laps, the grip was much lower, but Salman did well,” said Schumacher, who also received the trophy for the best starter in the “Road to DTM” classification at the weekend.
Double victory for Mercedes in the ADAC GT Masters
Finn Wiebelhaus (Obertshausen) and Jannes Fittje (Langenhain) took second place in the second Mercedes-AMG GT3 from the Haupt Racing Team. The podium was completed by the BMW M4 GT3 of Maxime Oosten (NL) and Leon Köhler (Erlenbach am Main/FK Performance).
At the start of the anniversary race, the Eifel showed its best side. The 250th race in the history of the ADAC GT Masters started in sunshine and with an outside temperature of 21 degrees Celsius. Right from the start, pole-setter Schumacher created a small cushion over his pursuers. But Fittje constantly put pressure on his brand colleague. During the pit stop window, Alexander Fach took the lead in the Porsche 911 GT3 R from Fach Auto Tech, as the Swiss driver was the last of all drivers to come into the pits for a driver change.
As a ProAm team, the Swiss team benefited from the shorter downtime, meaning that Alexander Schwarzer (D) returned to the track as the leader. However, Owega and Wiebelhaus were already lurking. “When I saw the Fach car in front of me, I knew immediately that I had to find a way past it as quickly as possible. My tires continued to wear down and the pressure from Finn increased. In the end, everything went according to plan and the victory was the well-deserved reward,” said 19-year-old Owega, describing the final phase.
Wiebelhaus also overtook the Porsche and crossed the finish line in second place: “It’s great to be back on the podium after the retirement on Saturday. It was also a great result for the team.” Köhler and Oosten impressed with strong racing speed and fought their way to third place on the podium after an impressive recovery from starting position ten. “Unfortunately, we struggled with the vehicle classification and setup all weekend. In today’s race we wanted to get the most out of it and we definitely succeeded with third place,” explained Köhler.
Guest starters Marcel Marchewicz (Schwetzingen) and Julian Hanses (Hilden/both Schnitzelalm Racing) finished the race in fourth place in their Mercedes-AMG GT3. Fifth place went to the two Swiss drivers Jean-Luc D’Auria and Alain Valente in the Ferrari 296 GT3 from Emil Frey Racing.
Sixth place went to the leaders of the table, Tom Kalender (Hamm/Sieg) and Elias Seppänen (FIN/both Landgraf Motorsport) in their Mercedes-AMG GT3. Schwarzer and Fach, who had previously been turned over by another vehicle in a strong third position, came in seventh. This secured them victory in the ProAm classification. Eighth place went to Jonas Greif (Coswig) and Simon Connor Primm (Großschirma/Paul Motorsport) in the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2, ahead of the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Mike David Ortmann (Ahrensfelde) and Denis Bulatov (Cologne/both Walkenhorst Motorsport).
ADAC GT Masters: This is the championship standings
The Kapfinger twins Michael and Johannes (both from Passau) completed the top 10 in another Porsche 911 GT3 R from the Joos by Twin Busch team. In the ProAM classification, Chandler Hull (USA) and Nico Hantke (Hürth/both Walkenhorst Motorsport) took second place in the Aston Martin Vantage GT3. Pablo Schumm (Heilbronn) and Jonas Karklys (LIT) in the Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2 completed the ProAm podium with third place.
In the championship, Kalender and Seppänen continue to claim the top spot with 117 points. Oosten and Köhler are in second place with 109 points. Seppänen also leads the “Road to DTM” ranking with 136 points. The ADAC GT Masters continues from August 30 to September 1 on the spectacular Ardennes rollercoaster of Spa-Francorchamps.