The third ADAC GT Masters race weekend of the 2012 season at the Sachsenring began the same way as the last race in Zandvoort ended, with two BMW Z4s GT3 in the lead. Claudia Hürtgen and Dominik Schwager (Schubert Motorsport) posted the fastest time of 01:22.476 in the first session early this Friday morning. Martin Matzke and Fredrik Lestrup (WestCoast Racing) driving another BMW Z4 were down by only a very small margin and finished just 0.028 seconds adrift in second place.

The Mamerow Racing Audi R9 LMS ultra was third fastest with a deficit of 0.376 seconds. The Mamerow Audi led the field until the final four minutes of the hour-long session when the two BMWs blasted past. Chris Mamerow and ADAC GT Masters returnee René Rast are sharing the drive this weekend.

There is a ray of hope for McLaren this Friday morning; Gemballa Racing's MP4-12C GT3 driven by Sascha Bert and Luca Ludwig posted fifth-fastest time behind the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG of Sebastian Asch / Maxmilian Götz (kfzteile24 MS Racing Team).

Under a slightly cloudy sky and warmish early summer temperatures, defending champion Dino Lunardi was sixth in the BMW ALPINA B6 GT3 (ALPINA) together with Maxime Martin. Crossing the finish line behind them came the Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 of Kristian Poulsen and Christoffer Nygaard (Young Driver AMR) and the Audi R8 LMS ultra of Christopher Mies and ADAC GT Masters newcomer Edward Sandström (Prosperia uhc speed).

The Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG of Christian Frankenhout / Kenneth Heyer (HEICO Motorsport) and the Ford GT with Jesse Krohn and Nico Verdonck (Lambda Performance) completed the Top Ten.

Championship leaders Diego Alessi and Daniel Keilwitz were twelfth in the Corvette Z06.R GT3 (Callaway Competition).