NURBURG, Germany — At the 250th race of the ADAC GT Masters, Mercedes-AMG drivers David Schumacher and Salman Owega from the Haupt Racing Team shined with their second win of the season.
After the two youngsters had already won Saturday’s race, they completed the double in the anniversary race over the 40-minute sprint distance.
“It’s always something special to win at an anniversary and write your name in the history books,” said Schumacher. “But the path to this was not easy, because we were under a lot of pressure from our competitors throughout. At the beginning, the additional 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.”
Finn Wiebelhaus and Jannes Fittje 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 and Leon Köhler.
At the start of the anniversary race, the Eifel showed its best side. Right from the start, polesitter Schumacher created a small cushion over his pursuers. But Fittje constantly put pressure on his brand colleague. During the pit stop window, Alexander Fach in the Porsche 911 GT3 R from Fach Auto Tech took the lead, as the Swiss 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, so that Alexander Schwarzer (D) returned to the track as the leader. However, Owega and Wiebelhaus were already lying in wait.
“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,” said 19-year-old Owega, describing the final phase. “My tires were wearing down more and more and the pressure from Finn was increasing. In the end, everything went according to plan and the victory was the deserved reward.”
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,” Wiebelhaus said. “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 10th on the grid.
“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.
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.