Mario Farnbacher has had an exciting and rewarding end to his season. Having already won one race this year in the ADAC GT Masters, Mario Farnbacher competed in a race on the other side of the Atlantic for the first time in his career. The ADAC Sports Foundation protégé lined up in a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup for the 'Petit Le Mans', the grand finale of the American Le Mans Series at Road Atlanta (Georgia). The winner of the race at the Red Bull Ring was a member of a three-man team alongside veteran ADAC GT Masters driver Kuba Giermaziak and Henrique Cisneros from Venezuela.

The 1,000-mile (1,600 km) race was a special challenge for Farnbacher who made the step up to GT racing from the Formel ADAC junior series: in the ADAC GT Masters, he is accustomed to being near the front of the field. In his US racing debut, however, the 20-year old was competing in the slowest class and had to adjust mentally to sharing the track with the much faster Le Mans models.

"It felt very strange at first being constantly overtaken by these faster cars," said Farnbacher. In addition, he had to cope with an unknown and highly demanding track as well as night driving, because at least one third of the race takes place after sunset. Plus he had to adjust to an unfamiliar vehicle - the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. "The Porsche 911 GT3 R that we drive in the ADAC GT Masters has considerably more downforce; that was something I missed."

Nonetheless, the young talent from Ansbach (Bavaria) mastered the challenge brilliantly at the end of his first full season in a GT sports car, not least thanks to the advice of his older brother. Dominik Farnbacher has been competing in the ALMS since 2006. He has already finished one season as runner-up in his class and is currently works driver at SRT Viper.

The race could not have gone better for the trio of Farnbacher, Giermaziak and Cisneros. Their wine-red Porsche was not only among the top three in its classification over the entire race distance of almost ten hours, but led for most of it and ultimately crossed the line as class winner. Farnbacher was delighted about finishing the season in such style: "I got faster with each lap I drove. I never imagined that I would adapt so quickly."