Finland’s Elias Seppänen could not have made a more perfect start to the ADAC GT Masters season. The Landgraf Motorsport driver set Friday’s fastest lap time of 1:37.995 minutes in free practice at the Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg. In Huber Racing and Team Joos by RACEmotion, two Porsche teams ended day one in the top three. Jaxon Evans (+0.200 seconds) was just faster than fellow Porsche driver Sven Müller (+0.293 seconds).
The drivers from 15 countries in this year’s ADAC GT Masters kicked off the new season in summery conditions and temperatures of up to 28 degrees Celsius at the “Festival of Dreams”. Two practice sessions were scheduled for Friday. Seppänen clocked the fastest time in the morning in his Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo. “It was about six degrees warmer in the afternoon than it was in the morning. That meant the tyres degraded faster and I was unable to improve on my time. The momentum is now with our team, and we want to use that for the rest of the weekend. Knowing that I was the fastest driver gives me more confidence,” said Seppänen.
Behind Landgraf, Huber and Joos was FK Performance Motorsport in fourth place (+0.322 seconds). The Bremen-based team is making its ADAC GT Masters debut in 2023, with drivers Kim-Luis Schramm and Igor Walilko at the wheel of a BMW M4 GT3. Fifth fastest was Ben Green (1:39.350 minutes) for Schubert Motorsport.
The first qualifying session takes place at 09:00 on Saturday morning and can be watched via a free livestream at adac.de/motorsport and on the YouTube channel @adacmotorsports. From 13:00, the ADAC GT Masters will determine its first race winner of the season at the “Festival of Dreams”. TV partner Sport1 is broadcasting the race live on free-to-air TV.
