Tumultuous and unpredictable: The battle for the Gentlemen trophy in the ADAC GT Masters at the Slovakia Ring was open and exciting right through to the end. Remo Lips and Lennart Marioneck driving a Callaway Competition Corvette Z06.R GT3 prevailed in a thrilling encounter on the final couple of laps to take their first win of the season. The two Porsche 911 GT3 Rs entered by TONINO Team Herberth and driven by Herbert Handlos (with Robert Renauer) and Dominic Jöst (with Florian Scholze) finished second and third respectively.

Florian Scholze, who had been the fastest of the Gentlemen entrants in qualifying, was immediately forced to yield the lead in the class to team-mate Handlos going into Turn 1: "I totally messed up the start - I don't exactly know what happened, but it felt like I'd lost at least ten positions." For Corvette man Lips, the opening lap also didn't go quite to plan: "I collided with an Audi at the start of the race and accidentally hit the pit limiter. By the time I noticed what had happened, I was at the back of the field."

Handlos maintained the class lead and handed the Porsche over to team-mate Robert Renauer who is sharing a cockpit with the Austrian for the first time here in Slovakia. Until shortly before the finish, all the signs were that Handlos was heading for another class victory, but a safety car deployment 20 minutes before the end of the race cancelled out the huge gap which the Porsche had built up. After the restart, ADAC Sports Foundation protégé Marioneck in his Corvette put the Porsche under pressure and seized the lead with two laps to go: "It was difficult with the tyres on those last few laps, but thanks to our sheer power, I was able to overtake the Porsche. And I have to say that Robert played very fair in the manoeuvre." Handlos and Renauer had to settle for the runner-up spot ahead of their team-mates Scholze and Jöst.

Antonios Wossos and Wolf Nathan (GW IT Racing Team Schütz Motorsport) were out of luck, exiting the race as early as the formation lap with damage to the universal shaft of their Porsche 911 GT3 R. They thus finished without any points for the first time this year. As a result, Jöst climbs to second place in the Gentlemen stakes behind TONINO Herberth team-mate Handlos. Another driver not finishing the race was Toni Seiler (Callaway Competition) after suffering an alternator failure on his Corvette.