A difficult task perfectly achieved: At the penultimate round of the ADAC GT Masters at the Nürburgring, Dino Lunardi (F) and Maxime Martin (B) secured their championship hopes with a outstanding performance in their BMW ALPINA B6 GT3. One Pole Position, the third victory of the season and a second place was the result of the weekend. The two ALPINA drivers reduced their gap to the championship leaders from 47 to 18 points with only two races to go.
ALPINA and the Nürburgring was already a successful combination in the ADAC GT Masters in the previous seasons. The BMW ALPINA B6 GT3 claimed four victories at the Nürburgring and Lunardi and Martin showed their ambitions for further success with a great result in the Qualifying. Defending champion Dino Lunardi started from the front row into race one, but made contact with the pole setting Corvette of Alessi in the first corner. Ferdinand Stuck, son of former ALPINA driver Hans-Joachim Stuck, took advantage of this and went into the lead with his Aston Martin, with the BMW ALPINA in second place. Lunardi remained in striking distance to the Aston Martin. When the Aston Martin team got penalised with a stop and go penalty after a rule infringement at the mandatory pit stop, Maxime Martin could slip into the lead. Martin remained unchallenged in the second part of the race and secured an impressive fifth victory of the BMW ALPINA B6 GT3 at the Nürburgring.
In Sunday's second race, Martin started from the Pole, but was outpaced by a Corvette driven by Daniel Keilwitz on the way to the first corner. The rapid Belgian chased the Corvette, as did Lunardi in the latter part of the race. But due to a 30kg weight handicap after the victory in race one, Lunardi couldn't attack the leader and eventually finished second, only 2,1 seconds behind the race-winning Corvette.
In the driver's championship, the ALPINA drivers improved to fourth place and are now 18 points behind championship leader Alessi / Keilwitz in a Corvette. "We are back at the front and made the most out of this weekend," said Lunardi. "But as almost all championship contenders scored good this weekend, it's very tight now and it will be a very exciting and for us also difficult final round."
"At the start of race two the Corvette went by due to it's better torque and straight line speed, but I could defend second place", Martin explained the start of race two. "We are now going to Hockenheim with solid chances for the championship."
"The weekend at the Nürburgring has been almost perfect for us", ALPINA's Andreas Bovensiepen said. "We are back in the contention for the championship, but under difficult circumstances as we have to start once again with 50kg success ballast. From the current season and also from the previous seasons, we know that it is difficult to even score points with a overall car weight of 1.550kg including driver and fuel. It will be an exciting final round of the season and we fight with Corvette, Porsche and Mercedes AMG for the championship. Considering our weight at Hockenheim, it would be good if it's wet. On a wet track, the success weight doesn't come into play so much so as the acceleration and the braking is not hard as in dry conditions. When it rains we have a realistic chance for the title. Otherwise it will be extremely difficult in dry conditions.
Johannes Leidinger and Florian Spengler in their BMW ALPINA B6 GT3 entered by ALPINA customer team LIQUI MOLY Team Engstler finished both races in the midfield in positions 19 and 21. The final round of the ADAC GT Masters takes place from 28th to 30th September at Hockenheim. In 2011, ALPINA started at Hockenheim from the Pole in both races and clinched the championship with a victory in race one.
Source: Teamy