The penultimate race of the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland season ended with a triple victory for Team GP Elite and an all-Dutch podium.
Loek Hartog won at the Hockenheimring, beating Huub van Eijndhoven and Larry ten Voorde. With this result, GP Elite also secured the title in the Teams classification. Finishing fifth at the penultimate race, Theo Oeverhaus from the CarTech Motorsport Bonk team became the Rookie champion.
The overall winner of the ProAm classification will be crowned on Sunday when the one-make cup contests its 16th and final round of the season with the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup.
Larry ten Voorde, who had already been crowned champion, started from pole position but opened the door for his teammates Hartog and van Eijndhoven, who started directly behind him, to pass him before the first corner.
“The plan is to help Huub to his first podium in the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland and to let Loek score as many points as possible in the fight for second place overall,” said team manager Torsten van Haasteren.
This tactic proved 100 percent successful.
“My victory is great. But it’s even better to see three GP Elite drivers on the podium,” stated Hartog. The 21-year-old Dutchman had built up an impressive lead of over five seconds before a safety car bunched the field together shortly before the finish.
Nevertheless, Hartog refused to relinquish his fourth victory of the season.
Hartog received the trophy for this success from Alexander Pollich, CEO at Porsche Deutschland GmbH.
“Congratulations to the winners of today’s race and to the 2023 champions,” commented Pollich. “Here in Hockenheim, an exciting season has come to an end in which drivers and teams have treated fans to top-class motorsport. Not only were there drivers from roughly a dozen European countries, but we also had participants from Kuwait, Australia and Israel.
Three-way battle for second place continues
With his victory in Saturday’s race, Hartog advanced to third overall and closed the gap to overall runner-up Bastian Buus (Allied-Racing). Heading into the final race of the season tomorrow — watch on SPEEDSPORT1.com — only eight points separate the Porsche Junior from Denmark and his Dutch rival.
Buus finished the first race of the weekend in seventh place. Briton Harry King, Buus’ teammate at Allied-Racing, who finished the race sixth, still has an outside chance of taking the honours behind champion ten Voorde with a gap of 20 points.
The starting grid for round 16 works in Hartog’s favour. On Sunday, Saturday’s winner will start from the third grid spot. King and Buus, on the other hand, qualified for grid positions seven and eight. Once again, ten Voorde will start from the front of the field — making it the 50th pole position in the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland for the 26-year-old Dutchman.
In the duel with the German Allied-Racing squad, GP Elite’s triple victory gave them such an extensive lead that they secured the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland team title for the first time.
“I’m incredibly proud of my entire crew. We worked hard for it and gave everything we had,” concluded Torsten van Haasteren.
Talent Pool driver Theo Oeverhaus crowned Rookie champion
With his eighth win of the season in the Rookie category, Oeverhaus extended his lead in the junior drivers’ classification by such a margin that he is now beyond reach. The 18-year-old member of the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland’s Talent Pool development program finished fifth behind Dutchman Morris Schuring.
“I kept out of trouble in the early stages to avoid taking any unnecessary risks. Only when things got tight again after the late safety car phase did I fight back more,” outlined Oeverhaus, who drives for the CarTech Motorsport Bonk team. “The fact that I won the Rookie classification again with this tactic and even achieved a fifth-place finish is a brilliant reward.”
The decision in the ProAm ranking will go down to the wire on Sunday.
Championship leader Sören Spreng (GP Elite) became entangled in a collision in the early stage.
“After that, the steering was wonky. Fortunately, I managed to save myself and get across the finish line,” reported the driver from Germany.
The ProAm victory went to Michael Essmann for the first time. The German contests his first season in the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland with CarTech Motorsport Bonk.
“It was really heated competition today, everyone was fully motivated,” added Essmann, describing the turbulent race in the ProAm class which included numerous incidents and position changes. “I decided to err on the side of caution and that paid off.”