Filip Salaquarda and Frank Stippler came to the fore in the opener of the season at Lausitzring in the #33 Audi R8 LMS at the end of an eventful weekend. The first qualifying session on Saturday ended with Filip Salaquarda taking P16, as he was the fastest of the Pirelli Trophy drivers. Salaquarda and Stippler put in a good recovery in race one and ended eighth overall and first in the Pirelli Trophy classification.

In the second qualifying on Sunday morning an excursion at turn 5 and contact with the wall prevented Stippler from completing the session. The huge work completed by ISR staff allowed the drivers to take part in the race even though from the back of the grid; the German driver did his best to get some ground back as did Salaquarda in the second stint. The pairing ended their effort in P20 overall, that earned them the third place of the Pirelli Trophy.

Filip Salaquarda: "We maybe lacked something in terms of raw pace on Saturday and we had to start from the mid of the pack. I started race one well though and I was eleventh a few laps into the race, while after the pit stop we climbed up to P8. The car was fast and we collected important points for the championship. On the contrary, it was not easy to recover some ground in race two as we started from the back; I found a lot of traffic in my stint and we decided to end the race without incidents."

Source: Team