ADAC GT Masters·11.8.2019

Overall victory for Junior stakes winner, Feller: Ineichen in front again at Zandvoort in Pirelli Trophy class

19-year-old Feller triumphed twice despite being harried for the entire race by the team's sister car in the fight for P1. Until his mandatory pit stop, Feller's partner Vanthoor had been in second place just behind Christopher Mies, their team-mate at Montaplast by Land-Motorsport, who had started on pole. While Mies handed over his Audi to Max Hofer on Lap 17, Vanthoor stayed out two laps longer, which paid off. Feller was now in the lead, but Hofer had dropped down into P3 behind the HTP-Mercedes-AMG of Philip Ellis and Fabian Vettel. Over the next few laps, Feller extended his lead out in front while Hofer slotted into second place behind him. Hofer managed to reduce the deficit on his team-mate in P1, but Feller remained ahead to take the spoils of victory - a first overall victory in the ADAC GT Masters for himself and partner Vanthoor and also first place in the Pirelli Trophy classification. Hofer and Vettel took P2 overall and P3 in the Junior class. For series newcomer Vettel, this was his first appearance on the overall podium.

"Mega! I've had to wait three years to finish on the top rung of the podium," said Feller. "It feels awesome to have finally done it. I'm just mega happy! I pushed as hard as I could initially to pull out a bit of a lead," said Feller. "After that, I tried to go easy on the tyres. Max got a bit closer in the end, but his tyres too were shot. Everything was great today. The only moment of shock-horror came after the finish when I realised that the right front tyre was losing air, but that didn't matter anymore."

Victory in the Pirelli Trophy classification again went to Swiss driver Rolf Ineichen in the Lamborghini, who also took the win in class on Saturday. Trophy championship leader Sven Barth did not make it to the finish line for the first time this season due to technical problems.

"I'm very happy with the way the race went," said Ineichen. "We had an excellent car today. It ran fine. I was under a lot of pressure from Luca Stolz and had a bit of trouble finding my rhythm initially, but things improved from around the middle of my stint. However, I found things tougher once again towards the end, as we kept picking up bits of rubber, but I was able to get closer to Fabian Vettel as the clock ticked down, and had that happened earlier, then maybe a scrap might have been a distinct possibility."