Jeffrey Schmidt and Marvin Kirchhöfer took their first win of the season in the Callaway Competition Corvette C7R GT3 in Sunday’s Race 2 at the Red Bull Ring, this the tenth win for the US sports car on the Austrian circuit.
Second place, less than a second behind, went to pole-setters Kim-Luis Schramm and Dennis Marschall in their Rutronik Racing by Tece Audi with the Schubert BMW of Nick Yelloly and Jesse Krohn completing the podium.”
Sunday’s race at the Red Bull Ring got off to a spectacular start: while Marvin Kirchhöfer with his Corvette passed pole-setter Dennis Marschall and took the lead, Mercedes-AMG Team Toksport WRT driver Maro Engel hit trouble after a collision exiting the first bend into the guardrails.
The result of the accident, which Engel survived unscathed: a 45-minute break in the race to rescue the car and repair the track barrier.
After the restart, Kirchhöfer and partner Jeffrey Schmidt, who took over the Corvette in the middle of the race, stayed in front until the finish line. During the entire race distance, the leading Corvette duo was under pressure from the second-placed Audi, which was never more than 1.5 seconds behind. In the end, Kirchhöfer / Schmidt were 0.842 seconds ahead of Dennis Marschall and Kim-Luis Schramm, who achieved Audi’s best result so far in the ADAC GT Masters at the Red Bull Ring with second place. As on the day before, the Audi duo won the Pirelli Junior classification for young drivers.
In an exciting final phase after a late safety car phase, BMW drivers Nick Yelloly and Jesse Krohn won the battle for third place on the penultimate lap. Fourth place on the last lap went to GRT Lamborghini works drivers Mirko Bortolotti and Albert Costa Balboa from their teammates Rolf Ineichen, who finished fifth. Ineichen celebrated his second victory of the weekend in the Pirelli Trophy classification.
Saturday winners Michael Ammermüller and Mathieu Jaminet (SSR Performance) defended the championship lead in sixth with their Porsche 911 GT3 R, their points cushion is 16 points after four of 14 races.
After a strong race to catch up from 18th place on the grid, Montaplast by Land-Motorsport Audi drivers Ricardo Feller and Christopher Mies came in seventh, followed by the best placed Mercedes AMG, the Team Zakspeed Mobil Krankenkasse Racing car of Igor Waliłko and Jules Gounon in front of David Jahn and Marco Holzer’s Team Joos Sportwagentechnik Porsche – Raffaele Marciello and Maximilian Buhk rounding out the top 10 in the Mann-Filter Team Landgraf – HTP / WWR Mercedes AMG.
Marvin Kirchhöfer: “In qualifying, we were able to lay a good foundation for the very decisive start here. The race was really demanding for both of us. Jeffrey managed the second half of the race very well, it wasn’t as easy as it looked from the outside. The pace of the first three was very identical, but we were able to gain a lead during the restarts and hold our position well. The Corvette works really well at the Red Bull Ring and we are very happy about the successful weekend. ”
Jeffrey Schmidt: “It’s very difficult to win here, we couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. We gave everything and are very happy about the win. At the start we were able to stay out of the chaos and after the restarts we got away well. I’m looking forward to Zandvoort. ”
