Round five of this season’s ADAC GT Masters at the Red Bull Ring produced some fascinating facts and stories. Here’s the Paddock Radar from the race weekend in Styria, Austria.
Double ProAm success and mammoth effort for HRT
Dennis Fetzer and HRT team owner Hubert Haupt enjoyed two impressive results in the ProAm class on their guest start in Spielberg. The two Mercedes-AMG drivers battled their way to two class victories. Their outing brought Haupt Racing Team’s total number of Mercedes-AMG GT3 on the starting grid to four – more than any other team in the history of the series.
Birthdays in the ADAC GT Masters
Aston Martin driver Chandler Hull from Walkenhorst Motorsport had every reason to celebrate on the Thursday ahead of the race weekend in Spielberg, as the American turned 30 on that day. And he celebrated in style: “Birthdays are always nice, but you would struggle to beat spending the day at a racetrack.” One day later, it was the turn of Filipino Eduardo Coseteng from the FK Performance team to celebrate his 21st birthday.
Haug honours successful drivers as Mercedes-AMG claims 40th victory
Norbert Haug was one of the presentation party on the ADAC GT Masters podium on Saturday. The former Mercedes Motorsport Director would have taken great pleasure in presenting the trophy, as his former employer not only claimed a top five lock-out, but also the 40th victory in the ADAC GT Masters for a car with the star emblem.
Landgraf engineer in mischievous mood
On Sunday, Elias Seppänen from Landgraf Motorsport secured his third pole position of the season in Spielberg. However, his initial reaction was less than impressed – instead of the fastest time, the team informed the Finn that he had qualified sixth. “I just thought, what the hell? I was a bit disappointed at first, because I actually expected more from the lap,” said the 20-year-old, describing how he felt after qualifying. Shortly afterwards, Seppänen realised that his team was playing a joke on him, and found out his actual result: “In the end, it was a funny situation, and you have to have a bit of fun. A few minutes later, I was delighted to have secured pole position.”
