Niklas Krütten (19/Trier) is on fire after his first victory in the ADAC GT Masters on Saturday at the Red Bull Ring. The Schubert Motorsport youngster drove like a man possessed in the #10 BMW M4 GT3 in Sunday’s qualifying session. His time of 1:28.346 minutes was enough to earn him his first Pirelli Pole Position Award in the German GT Championship. The man from Trier and his partner Ben Green (24/GB) also picked up three valuable bonus points.
“Qualifying was unbelievably good. It is great for our team to start from the first two positions on the grid. Ben and I will try to make it two wins in a row. That would be awesome,” said the pole-sitter after his success.
Just 0.08 seconds slower than the two young guns were their team-mates and fellow BMW drivers. Works drivers Jesse Krohn (31/FIN) and Nicky Catsburg (34/NL) made it an all-BMW front row. Third fastest was Christian Engelhart (35/Starnberg) from the Joos Sportwagentechnik, who finished runner-up alongside Ayhancan Güven (24/TR) in the #91 911 GT3 R in Saturday’s race. Dries Vanthoor (24/B) ended the second qualifying with a fastest time of 1:28.439 minutes in the #29 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Montaplast by Land-Motorsport, and secured fourth place on the grid for himself and Jusuf Owega (20/Cologne). Sven Müller (30/Bingen) qualified just behind him in the #22 Porsche 911 GT3 R and starts the race from fifth place together with Joel Sturm (20/Brühl) and Allied-Racing.
The second qualifying session took place in glorious sunshine on Sunday morning at the Red Bull Ring. With temperatures down around 13 degrees, it took several laps to get the Pirelli race tyres up to the optimal temperature. After that, the fastest times tumbled and the time differences were minimal. The cars were so evenly balanced that the entire field was ultimately separated by less than a second.
