The early bird certainly caught the worm in Zandvoort: Mick Wishofer (22/A) from the Emil Frey Racing team went on the attack just a few minutes into the opening qualifying session on Saturday morning – a tactic that paid dividends. In dry conditions, the Austrian at the wheel of the #14 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo took just 1:34.039 minutes to complete his seventh lap of the 4.259-kilometre circuit in the Dutch dunes.
Then came the rain, making it impossible for Wishofer’s rivals to beat his fastest time. As such, the Lamborghini driver and his partner Konsta Lappalainen (20/FIN) start race five of the German GT Championship from pole position and also pick up three bonus points for winning the Pirelli Pole Position Award. “Despite the tricky conditions, qualifying was great. We took advantage of the short time window, in which the track was dry and we were able to get our flying laps in. Thanks to everyone, that was a really great team effort,” said a delighted Wishofer.
Saturday morning’s qualifying session started with a track temperature of 21 degrees and a damp track in places. Once the drivers had got some heat into their tyres on the first three laps, the pursuit of the best time began. Behind pole-sitter Mick Wishofer, Jan Marschalkowski (19/Inning) and Daniel Juncadella (31/E) of Mercedes-AMG Team ZVO clocked the second-fastest time and line up on the front row of the grid with the #8 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo. They were followed in third place by Jannes Fittje (22/Langenhain) and Jaxon Evans (25/NZ) in the #44 Porsche 911 GT3 R of ID Racing. Ezequiel Perez Companc (27/RA) and the returning Maximilian Götz (36/Uffenheim) will start Saturday’s race from fourth position in the #90 Madpanda Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3. Jusuf Owega (20/Cologne) and Ricardo Feller (21/CH) of Montaplast by Land-Motorsport complete the top five in the best-placed Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II. The Schubert Motorsport team of championship leaders Niklas Krütten (19/Trier) and Ben Green (24/GB) took a chance and only got involved with the #10 BMW M4 GT3 when it started to rain. The result was last place. Friday’s fastest pair, Elias Seppänen (18/FIN) and Frank Bird (22/GB) of Mann-Filter Team Landgraf, did not fare much better. They also waited too long with the #84 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo and were fighting a losing battle when the rain started to fall. The first race in Zandvoort, round three of the ADAC GT Masters, gets underway at 13:00.
All ADAC GT Masters races start at 13:00. International viewers can watch the qualifying and the races live on adac.de/motorsport, the new ADAC Motorsports YouTube channel youtube.com/ADACMotorsports and motorsport.tv.
