Raffaele Marciello (27/CH) is unstoppable. The German GT Championship leader was the fastest driver in the first qualifying session on Saturday morning at the Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg, securing his fourth pole position in this season’s ADAC GT Masters. The Swiss driver in the #48 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Mann-Filter Team Landgraf was the only man to dip below 1:38.000 minutes. Marciello’s time of 1:37.944 left no doubt that his objective is to wrap up the title on Saturday, when he lines up for race one alongside team-mate Daniel Juncadella (31/E).
“We are ready for the title, and don’t need to score that many points to get it. It is important to drive safely and avoid any mistakes. It would be great to end the race on the podium and celebrate winning the championship while we’re up there,” said Raffaele Marciello, who extended his lead to 45 points ahead of the final two races, courtesy of the three bonus points for the Pirelli Pole Position Award.
The Emil Frey Racing duo of Albert Costa Balboa (32/E) and Jack Aitken (27/GB) qualified second, roughly a tenth of a second slower than the championship leader. Fabian Schiller (25/Troisdorf), who shares the cockpit with Jules Gounon (27/F), was third fastest in the #4 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Drago Racing Team ZVO. As such, the dream of winning the title is now over for these two pairings. Konsta Lappalainen (21/FIN) and Mick Wishofer (23/A) guided another Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo to fourth place for Emil Frey Racing. The second-placed duo in the championship, Christian Engelhart (35/Starnberg) and Ayhancan Güven (24/TR), could do no better than fifth place in the #91 Porsche 911 GT3 R #91 of Team Joos Sportwagentechnik, and fell a further three valuable points behind leader Marciello.
Qualifying started at 09:00 on Saturday morning, with dry conditions and a track temperature of 11.3 degrees. It took over ten minutes to get the tyres up to temperature and start producing the first flying laps. Raffaele Marciello waited until six minutes from the end before striking for the first time and moving to the top of the timings. The Swiss set his fastest time, which eventually proved unbeatable, on his sixth lap.
Race 13 of the ADAC GT Masters gets underway at 13:00. You can watch the race live on motorsport.tv and adac.de/motorsport.
