The start of the racing season proved to be tough for WestCoast Racing. After having finished 14th yesterday, and being as high up as fourth place, the second race of the weekend at Oschersleben did not go as expected. The team was forced to retire with a broken steering after Martin Matzke was hit by the #44 Mercedes, a collision that damaged the right front.

Martin Matzke took the start which for the second time this weekend became a bit chaotic. He started from 20th place from the grid and managed to avoid the chaos in the run down to the tight first left hand corner. He exited the corner in 24th place, a position he held through most of the stint which he described as very diffcult to drive.

"It was a difficult stint. We were low on power and also had a lot of understeer so I struggled a lot. When the Mercedes overtook me I gave him plenty of room and just stayed out of his way but he still hit me. I could continue but the car was too badly damaged. This was a difficult race but we'll come back," he said.

Martin could drive his stint and hand over to Fredrik Lestrup but three laps after the driver change the steering proved to be too damaged to continue and Fredrik was forced to retire from the race in the pits.

"There's not much to say really. It felt good when I drove out and the pace the first laps after the stop was pretty ok but three laps later it was impossible to steer right and that was that. It's obviously not what we hoped for but this has been a tough weekend from the start. We will come back at the next race instead," Fredrik said.

Teammanager Dick Jönsson Wigroth stated the obvious after the race, the first race weekend of the year in ADAC GT Masters just never went as the team expected it. Now WestCoast Racing has five weeks to prepare for the second round in the championship. "This was just not simply our weekend. We fought against the odds from the start and our hope quickly changed to just be able to drive through the two races and gain experience. The race yesterday went pretty ok given the circumstances but today it unfortunately didn't go our way at all. There was nothing Martin could do to avoid the accident, he just kept out of trouble but sometimes things like this happens. We know both the team and the car has the pace, we just need things to go our way a little bit more. We look forward to have five weeks to prepare for the race weekend at Zandvoort," he summarizes.

Source: Team