In the end 20 cars made it to the season opening round of the ADAC GT Masters at Oschersleben, the Dupre Engineering Audi R8 LMS ultra wasn’t repaired in time after its shunt at the official test and media days. Schütz Motorsport also let their second Porsche 911 GT3 R back at their base, with Antonios Wossos medically side-lined their Gentlemen Trophy 911 didn’t take part in the weekend.
Friday’s free practice sessions saw the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 of MRS GT-Racing making a triumphant return to the ADAC GT Masters scene, with positions 1 and 3 in Free Practice 1 and a second place in the second Free Practice. After a slow start during the first Free Practice sessions both Bentley Continental of the Bentley Team HTP made progress, which then culminated in both Luca Stolz and Jeroen Bleekemolen securing the Pole Position for both races. Behind Luca Stolz it was Christian Engelhart securing second for Schütz Motorsport, ahead of Jens Klingmann in the lead BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert BMW Z4 GT3 and Sebastian Asch in the Zakspeed SLS. Dominic Jöst qualified his Nissan GT-R in fifth, while his teammate Marc Gassner finished 16th. Sixth went to the second HTP Bentley, driven by Fabian Hamprecht, ahead of Andreas Wirth’s Callaway Corvette. The best placed Audi was driven by Jordan Lee Pepper to ninth starting position, and Tomas Enge qualified the Reiter Camaro in 14th.
The second qualifying session saw Bleekemolen then follow up on his teammates performance by securing another pole position for the No. 7 Bentley Continental GT3. Second this time went to Nicki Thiim in the C.Abt Racing Audi R8 LMS ahead of Luca Ludwig in the Zakspeed SLS and Daniel Keilwitz in the Callaway Corvette. Dominik Baumann qualified the best placed BMW in seventh, ahead of Florian Strauss in the quickest Nissan. Klaus Bachler put the lone Porsche into tenth starting position, Oliver Gavin wasn’t able to put in proper lap time due to a suspension failure on his Reiter Camaro.
Race 1
The start of the race saw a drag race down the start finish straight, with Luca Stolz (HTP-Bentley) definitely being on the losing end of that one. Outpacing him were Christian Engelhart (Schütz-Porscshe) and Sebastian Asch (Zakspeed-SLS) and Stolz went into turn 1 side by side with his teammate Fabian Hamprecht. In turn 1 he got touched by Jens Klingmann (Schubert-BMW) resulting him in losing more positions, he finished the opening lap in seventh. Turn 1 also proved tricky for two of the C.Abt Racing Audi’s and their MS Racing counterparts, both MS Racing R8s and the car of Stefan Wackerbauer (C.Abt-Audi) spun and Daniel Dobitsch (MS Racing-Audi) had to retire his car on the spot. Because of overturned tirewalls race control was forced to deploy the safety car.
The order in which the cars cued behind the safety car was Christian Engelhart (Schütz-Porsche) leading from Sebastian Asch (Zakspeed-SLS) and Fabian Hamprecht (HTP-Bentley). Hari Proczyk (HP Racing-SLS) was fourth ahead of Jens Klingmann (Schubert-BMW) and Andreas Wirth (Callaway-Corvette). After a couple of laps behind the safety car the field was let loose again and Christian Engelhart was able to keep his lead. Position changes at the restart happened only outside the top 10, with Tomas Enge (Reiter-Camaro) getting past Patrick Assenheimer (Callaway-Corvette). And a position change between C.Abt Racing teammates Andreas Weishaupt and Kelvin van der Linde.
The following laps only saw a move of Claudia Hürgten (Schubet-BMW) past Luca Stolz (HTP-Bentley) to take seventh place from the Bentley. At the front Christian Engelhart was able to separate himself a little bit from Sebastian Asch and the other chasers, meanwhile further back it was Dominic Jöst (MRS-Nissan) getting past Rahel Frey (Yaco Audi) about 20 minutes into the race. Shortly there after Marc Gassner (MRS-Nissan) and Stefan Wackerbauer (C.Abt-Audi) were engaged into a door to door fight, which left Wackerbauer spinning and Florian Stoll (MS Racing-Audi) being the lucky one snatching up their positions.
As usual the ten minutes pit stop window opened 25 minutes into the race, and some cars decided to undertake their driver change early into the window. After everyone handed over to their co-drivers it was still the Schütz-Porsche, now with Klaus Bachler behind the wheel in the lead. Bachler was able to extend the gap to Luca Ludwig (Zakspeed SLS) because the Zakspeed’s pitstop took about 4 seconds longer. A bad pit stop saw Fabian Hamprecht’s co driver Clemens Schmid (HTP-Bentley) lose third place, falling back to eight place. With Floran Scholze (MRS-Nissan) picking up a speeding penalty in the pit lane, Schmid was able to move back up to seventh. The positions four through six were highly contested between both Schubert-BMWs, with Dominik Baumann and Jesse Krohn behind the wheel, and Daniel Keilwitz (Callaway-Corvette). Within minutes Keilwitz got past Krohn and Baumann to move up to fourth. Further back it was Florian Strauss (MRS-Nissan) on a mission, after taking over the car in 14th position, he sliced through the field with multiple clean overtaking maneuvers. Getting into the top 10 with about ten minutes left to drive, when he made a nice move on Oliver Gavin (Reiter-Camaro).
Up front it was Klaus Bachler (Schütz-Porsche) still holding down the lead, ahead of Luca Ludwig (Zakspeed-SLS) and Andreas Simonsen (HP Racing-SLS). Even a light rain shower in the final minutes couldn’t derail Bachler. With about five minutes to go the drama intensified, with Kelvin van der Linde (C.Abt-Audi) losing a wheel and then Clemens Schmid (HTP-Bentley) hit the concrete wall hard. The safety car was diploid once again and the race would finish behind it. It was a clean start-finish victory for Engelhart/ Bachler (Schütz-Porsche) ahead of Asch/ Ludwig (Zakspeed-SLS) and Proczyk/ Simonsen (HP Racing-SLS).
Fourth went to Keilwith/ Wirth (Callaway-Corvette), ahead of Baumann/ Klingmann (Schubert-BMW) and Hürtgen/ Krohn (Schubert-BMW). Frey/ Geipel (Yaco-Audi) finished in seventh, one place ahead of Pepper/ Thiim (C.Abt-Audi). By finishing ninth Gassner/ Strauss (MRS-Nissan) also took the win in the Gentlemen Trophy, with Enge/ Gavin (Reiter-Camaro) securing the final championship point.
Race 2
Due to the damage sustained in Saturday’s race the HTP-Bentley of Clemens Schmid and Fabian Hamprecht wasn’t able to take up the second race of the weekend. But HTP still had the pole sitting car of Jeroen Bleekemolen and Luca Stolz in contention. At the start of the one hour race Daniel Keilwitz (Callaway-Corvette) used the thrust of his V8 engine to snatch away the lead from Jeroen Bleekemolen (HTP-Bentley), Bleekemolen stayed in second place ahead of Luca Ludwig (Zakspeed-SLS) in third. Nicki Thiim (C.Abt-Audi) fell all the way back from second position to seventh in the first corners, due to being pushed wide by other cars. Minutes after the start Florian Strauss (MRS-Nissan) was pushed wide into the first hairpin by Dominik Baumann (Schubert-BMW), resulting in a loss of multiple places for the Nissan.
In the first 20 minutes, the order stayed almost the same, with the C.Abt Audi trio swapping places every once in a while and Florian Strauss (MRS-Nissan) getting back one spot when he got passed Christer Jöns (C.Abt-Audi) for eight place. Shortly before the opening of the pit lane for the mandatory pit stop window Oliver Gavin (Reiter-Camaro) and Lennart Marioneck (Senkyr-BMW) got together at the third chicane, sending the BMW into the barrier and bringing out the safety car. With the clock ticking towards the 35 minutes remaining pit stop window threshold, race control decided to pull the safety car back in and multiple teams decided to go for the early pit stop. During the pit stop window, Florian Strauss (MRS-Nissan) suffered a puncture, which lead him to taking out an advertising board.
After the pit stops were completed it was Keilwitz’s teammate Andreas Wirth (Callaway-Corvette) sill leading from Luca Stolz (HTP-Bentley) and Sebastian Asch (Zakspeed-SLS). Hari Proczyk (HP Racing-SLS) held fourth. Taking a major advantage from their early pitstops were Christian Engelhart (Schütz-Porsche) and Claudia Hürtgen (Schubert-BMW) running in fifth and sixth. Due to a pit stop infringement Marc Gassner (MRS-Nissan) was hit with a Stop-and-Go penalty, after he didn’t serve that penalty in timely fashion the GT-R was black flagged and disqualified. In the closing minutes Luca Stolz (HTP-Bentley) was still clinging to the bumper of Andreas Wirth (Callaway-Corvette), but couldn’t find a way past him. Luca Ludwig (Zakspeed-SLS) was still holding down third from Andreas Simonsen (HP Racing-SLS).
The drama then unfolded in the final minutes when Andreas Wirth (Callaway-Corvette) suffered a technical problem in the drivetrain, forcing Wirth to parc his car and handing the lead to Luca Stolz (HTP-Bentley). Stolz brought the car then home, giving Bentley a win on it’s debut weekend in the ADAC GT Masters. Positions two and three went once again to Ludwig/ Asch (Zakspeed-SLS) and Proczyk/ Simonsen (HP Racing-SLS). Fourth place went to Bachler/ Engelhart (Schütz-Porsche), one spot ahead of Hürtgen/ Krohn (Schubert-BMW). Van der Linde/ Wackerbauer (C.Abt Racing-Audi) scored their first championship points of the season by crossing the line in sixth, with Klingmann/ Baumann (Schubert-BMW) finishing in seventh. Just a second and a half back from fourth placed Bachler/ Engelhart (Schütz-Porsche) Jöst/ Scholze (MRS-Nissan) saw the chequered flag in eight, also winning the Gentlemen Tropy. The final points were awarded to Dobitsch/ Sandström (MS Racing-Audi) and Barth/ Lips (RWT-Corvette).
After the opening weekend of the season it’s Klaus Bachler/ Christian Engelhart (Schütz-Porsche) leading the championship with 37 points, one point ahead of Luca Ludwig/ Sebastian Asch (Zakspeed-SLS) and seven points in front of Hari Proczyk/ Andreas Simonsen (HP Racing-SLS). The next round of the ADAC GT Masters takes place June 5th to the 7th at the Red Bull Ring.
Soren Herweg
