BWT Race Lap Award: Drivers in the German GT Championship raise € 60,000 for b.waterMISSION

Sustainable: “Bottle-Free Zone” in the paddock saves roughly 100,000 plastic bottles. BWT donates € 50,000 to victims of the catastrophic floods in the Eifel region.

German GT Champions Ricardo Feller and Christopher Mies (from left) with the symbolic cheque for € 60,000 © Photo: ADAC

12,181 laps of racing, and each and every one of them for a good cause. For each lap completed in the 14 races that made up the 2021 German GT Championship, series partner BWT, the leading water technology company in Europe, and the ADAC donated four euros. This came to an impressive € 48,724, which was rounded up to € 60,000 by BWT and the ADAC. This money will go towards building wells in Gambia and Tanzania, as part of BWT’s b.waterMISSION, which is committed to providing clean drinking water. Lutz Hübner, CMO of BWT AG, and Lars Soutschka, Member of the Board of ADAC e. V., symbolically handed over a cheque to German GT Champions Ricardo Feller (21/CH) and Christopher Mies (32/Düsseldorf) at the presentation ceremony for the International German GT Championship. The “Bottle-Free Zone” in the paddock, launched this year by BWT And the ADAC GT Masters, was also a huge success. The introduction of water dispensers in the team’s garages, the Media Center, and organisational areas cut the number of plastic bottles by roughly 100,000, contributing significantly to efforts to reduce plastic waste.

The donation of € 60,000 will be used to build wells in Gambia and Tanzania © Photo: ADAC

Lutz Hübner, CMO of BWT AG: “A billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. With the BWT Race Lap, we and the ADAC wanted to take a stance and highlight this inequality. However, we also wanted to do something practical to help and have thus been supporting the building of wells in Afrika. Each one provides clean drinking water for roughly 650 to 850 people.” One of the wells now being built will be dedicated to German GT Champions Mies and Feller.

“Together with BWT and the Bottle-Free Zone, we have taken the first step towards achieving greater sustainability in the paddock this year,” says ADAC Member of the Board Lars Soutschka. “Next year, we will expand this project. The b.waterMISSION, for which we have raised a lot of awareness through global TV broadcasts from the German GT Championship, is a good initiative. We are glad to be doing our bit to give people access to clean drinking water.“

Paddock sets a trend as a Bottle-Free Zone

At the start of the season in Oschersleben this May, the ADAC GT Masters paddock was made a “Bottle-Free Zone” thanks to BWT drinking water dispensers. Drivers and teams, media representatives and anyone working on the organisational side of things could use refillable BWT water bottles, thus effectively reducing the amount of plastic waste that accumulates at such large events. On the back of this successful debut, the project to achieve greater sustainability in the paddock will be extended to incorporate spectator areas next year. Visitors will be able to refill their water bottles free of charge at BWT drinking water dispensers.

At the final round of the German GT Championship, which took place at the Nürburgring, BWT also helped victims of the disastrous flooding in the Eifel region. Europe’s leading water technology company, BWT spontaneously donated € 50,000 towards rebuilding efforts in the region, which was severely affected by the catastrophe.