One win and a second place finish at the Nürburgring: The Eifel mountains were a good hunting ground for ALPINA at the fourth round of the ADAC GT Masters. With two podium finishes of Dino Lunardi and Maxime Martin in the BMW ALPINA B6 GT3, ALPINA made an impressive return to the podium in the ADAC GT Masters. At the event held in conjunction with the ADAC Truck-Grand-Prix in front of 180,000 spectators, Lunardi/Martin retook the lead in the driver's championship, while ALPINA returned to the top of the teams championship.

Weather played a key role at the Nürburgring and certainly played in ALPINA' shand, with very difficult wet conditions in both races. On the 3.6 km short sprint layout of the Nürburgring, the BMW ALPINA B6 GT3 couldn't play its strength in the past. But on a wet track, odds were much better.

Dino Lunardi started from seventh on the grid in the first race on a wet track. The defending champion lost one position in the first laps, when the tires lacked grip, but after a few laps, the Frenchman retook the lost position and consequently overtook a BMW, a Porsche and Corvette on the way to fourth place. A perfect pit stop by ALPINA, the fastest in the entire field, brought the B6 GT3 even further forward. After the driver change, Maxime Martin was already in second place, as he was able to profit from a stop-and-Go penalty for the second placed Sebastian Asch on a Mercedes SLS AMG due to a too late pit stop. By the end of the race, the 26-year-old reduced the gap to the leading Audi R8 to 1.6 seconds and claimed the second place in a photo finish, only 0.02 ahead of the third placed Porsche.

In Sunday's second race, which started on a wet rack, Maxime Martin once again proved why he is considered as one of the quickest GT drivers around. Within three laps, the Belgian, who started from third, overtook a Porsche and a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG on his way to the lead. When conditions got worse during a torrential downpour halfway through the race, Martin could even extend his lead to eight seconds until the driver change. After another perfect pit stop and driver change, Dino Lunardi drove a flawless and perfect race and secured the second win of ALPINA in 2012.

"We're back in the championship race", Dino Lunardi was pleased about the great results in the Eifel mountains. "In the second race, it was very difficult at the end, as the track dried and this didn't fit to my tire pressure, so I really had to look after the tires and stay concentrated to bring the victory home."

"We could especially benefit from the rain this weekend" said Maxime Martin after the race. "When it was very wet, the ALPINA was just perfect. But on a drying track in the second race, the Mercedes had an advantage. So the end of race two was very exciting, as the Mercedes came very close. But Dino drove a fantastic race and managed to bring the victory home."

"The rain this weekend was a great pity for the many fans, but perfect for us," said ALPINA's Andreas Bovensiepen. "The weather helped us a lot. We had a good strategy, made no mistakes and had the fastest pit stops. This weekend, everything was perfect. There is no better chance for a driver to make a difference then in the rain, and the two races showed once again, that we have two of the quickest drivers on the grid. In the second race, we had all chances after starting from third and Maxime showed, why he is called 'rain god'. Dry conditions would have been very difficult for us here this weekend, we saw that when the track dried, then Mercedes and Audi were a bit quicker."

In a second BMW ALPINA B6 GT3 entered by ALPINA customer team LIQUI MOLY Team Engstler, Florian Spengler und Johannes Leidinger shared driving duties. The Engstler duo finished 23rd and 24th in the two races.

Source: Team