Luca Ludwig is well placed for the 2015 ADAC GT Masters. Shortly before Christmas, Ludwig was confirmed by Team Zakspeed as lead driver for 2015 and will commence his second successive ADAC GT Masters season sharing one of the two Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3s entered by Peter Zakowski's team. 26-year-old Ludwig sees no reason why he shouldn't be regarded as a genuine championship contender: "I am convinced that we are a force to be reckoned with in this year's ADAC GT Masters."

The form of gullwing specialists Zakspeed in their debut season showed a sharp upwards trend. On two of the last three weekends on the race calendar (Nürburgring and Hockenheim), the Zakspeed Mercedes took pole position. At the Nürburgring, which counts as the home race for both Zakspeed and Ludwig, they claimed their first podium. In the Hockenheim grand finale, Ludwig and Harald Schlegelmilch missed out on victory by a mere half second.

The strong second half of the season has boosted Ludwig's morale for the forthcoming campaign: "We had a great final weekend in Hockenheim, which has kept my motivation level high during the winter months. In recent years, I've never had a particularly good end to the campaign, but at Hockenheim we just had an outstanding race. I held a five-second-plus lead over the rest of the field going into the driver changeover. This great performance was uppermost in my mind throughout the winter break."

Ludwig still has to find out who his co-driver will be for the 2015 season. He is determined to build on the good performances in 2014 with immediate effect in the season opener at the etropolis Motorsport Arena Oschersleben (24th - 26th April). "Last year, we only got everything in place just before the start of the season, but thanks to the hard work of the team and the drivers, we were competing for podium places by the end. We now have the experience of 2014 to build on, and we will be testing hard again before the season starts. So this time round, we won't be starting from cold."

During his five seasons in the series so far, Ludwig has recorded a total of seven race wins in either a Corvette or an Audi R8. His target for season number six is to pick up more winners' trophies, but this time at the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG: "The runner-up spot is all well and good from a points-scoring perspective, but ultimately it's only victories that count. Our aim for 2015 must therefore be to finish on the top rung of the podium."