Elias Seppänen from the Landgraf Motorsport team made a perfect start to the second half of this season’s ADAC GT Masters: he not only clocked the fastest time of 2:15.923 minutes at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, but also smashed the previous qualifying record for the series, set by Bernd Schneider in 2015, by 2.581 seconds. “I am mega happy with my second pole position of the season. It was an excellent lap and the car was just super. The key at the start on Saturday will be to get out of La Source cleanly, in order to carry plenty of speed into the straight,” said Seppänen, who shares the Mercedes-AMG GT3 with his team-mate Tom Kalender (Hamm/Sieg).
The ADAC GT Masters drivers took to the track in dry conditions on Friday afternoon, as they went up against the clock in qualifying for race seven of the season. Initially, Sandro Holzem (Polch/Land Motorsport) in an Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2 and Aston Martin driver Chandler Hull (USA/Walkenhorst Motorsport) alternated at the top of the timings sheet. Roughly halfway through qualifying, Simon Connor Prim (Großschirma), in a Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 run by Paul Motorsport, was the first to break the lap record from the 2015 season. As the session progressed, the top times were bettered on several occasions and the tension started to rise. Ultimately, it was last year’s champion Seppänen who put together the best lap and will start the endurance race from pole position. Second place went to the Ferrari 296 GT3 of Emil Frey Racing, with the Swiss pair of Alain Valente and Jean-Luc D`Auria at the wheel. Rounding out the top three were Benjamin Hites (Chile) and Tim Zimmermann (Langenargen) in a Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 for Grasser Racing Team. The second Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Jannes Fittje (Langenhain) and Finn Wiebelhaus (Obertshausen/both Haupt Racing Team) was fourth fastest, ahead of Switzerland’s Alexander Fach and Alexander Schwarzer (DEU) in a Porsche 911 GT3 R for Fach Auto Tech.
Saturday’s ADAC GT Masters action features the second 80-minute endurance race. The race at the iconic Belgian circuit starts at 11:05 and can be seen on free-to-air German TV, courtesy of television partner Sport1. The seventh race of the season will also be streamed live and free of charge, with commentary in German and English, on the ADAC Motorsport YouTube channel at youtube.com/@ADACMotorsports.
