This third win in a row (and their fourth of the season) has taken the Callaway Competition duo to the top of the ADAC GT Masters standings. Claudia Hürtgen (41) and Dominik Baumann (20) in a PIXUM Team Schubert BMW had to content themselves with the runner-up spot after a thrilling duel with the winning Corvette. Robert Renauer (28) and Martin Ragginger (25) in their Tonino by Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 finished third. "We're gradually getting used to the idea of winning in the ADAC GT Masters," said a jubilant Alessi on the podium. Alessi and Keilwitz are only the second driver partnership in the history of the ADAC GT Masters to notch up three wins in a row.
Scrap between Rast and Farnbacher curtails start
Events at the start of the race were dominated by the clash between pole-sitter Mario Farnbacher (21) in a Farnbacher Racing Porsche 911 and René Rast (26) in a Prosperia C Abt Audi R8. Rast got off to a better start than Farnbacher, seizing the lead ahead of the first corner. Farnbacher followed through in the Audi's slipstream, looking for a chance to strike back. But the counterattack at the end of the start-finish straight ended disastrously as the Porsche drove over a high kerb and wrecked its underbody. With debris from the Farnbacher Porsche wedged into the kerb, the safety car was deployed. As considerable work was needed to return the edge of the track to a safe condition, the stewards decided to bring out the red flags and halt the race.
After a 20-minute interruption, Rast led out at the restart but then had to take a drive-through penalty for having overtaken the safety car before the race was stopped. As a result of this penalty, Rast and team-mate Christopher Mies (24) finished well back in P14 and outside the points. The main beneficiary was Daniel Keilwitz who now inherited the lead in his Corvette. But Keilwitz had a real job on his hands to bring home the silverware as the second-placed BMW driven by Baumann put the Corvette under continual pressure, getting up alongside on a couple of occasions. But Keilwitz nonetheless prevailed in a tough battle to cross the line 0.776 seconds ahead of the BMW.
"In the second half of the race, the brakes on our Corvette were starting to fade," said Keilwitz. "Every time I braked, the BMW was getting closer, so I had to concentrate on accelerating well out of the corner. The battle with the BMW was very hard, but it was a fair one."
Alessi: "The race today was very special. We only won because we were able to benefit from the misfortune of our rivals and because we had a perfect pit stop which moved us up from fifth to second. We were very lucky, because it was clear that the BMW was significantly faster than us on the last couple of laps."
Renauer and Ragginger finished the race in third place after setting a consistently fast pace. Frank Kechele (26) and Dominik Schwager (36) in the Lambda Performance Ford GT finished fourth, missing out on a podium by only 0.5 seconds. Christer Jöns (26) and former DTM and Formula 1 driver Markus Winkelhock (32) came fifth in their Prosperia C Abt Audi R8 ahead of the two Dutchmen Simon Knap (24) and Jeroen den Boer (25) in the DB Motorsport BMW Z4. Maximilian Götz (27) and Maximilian Buhk (20) in a Polarweiss Racing Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG finished seventh, having gone into the race as championship leaders. Ex-DTM driver Rahel Frey (27) from Switzerland and Christopher Haase (25) in a Prosperia C Abt Audi R8 came home in eighth position.
Win also for Corvette in Gentlemen stakes
It was a double victory for the American sports car in Race 1 at the Lausitzring as Swiss amateur Remo Lips (31), ably assisted by ADAC Sports Foundation protégé Lennart Marioneck (24) from Bamberg, claimed his second win of the season in the Gentlemen classification. Current championship leader René Bourdeaux (38) came second in his Tonino by Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911, thereby extending his lead over closest pursuer Christina Nielsen (21) from Denmark driving a Farnbacher Racing Porsche 911.
Porsche and BMW share front row on Sunday
In the second of the two races this weekend, Martin Ragginger's Porsche lines up in pole position alongside the BMW of fellow Austrian Dominik Baumann. On Row 2 are Dominik Schwager in a Ford GT and Nick Tandy (26) from England in a Farnbacher Racing Porsche. Meanwhile, Saturday's winner Keilwitz starts from relatively far back on the grid in P14.