Haupt Racing Team secured a spectacular front row lock-out in the dying seconds of a spectacular first qualifying session for Saturday’s ADAC GT Masters race at the Red Bull Ring. Max Reis (Ramstein) stopped the clock on 1:35.798 minutes at the end of his final flying lap to record the fastest time of the session and ensure he starts from the front of the grid in his Mercedes-AMG GT3 when race nine of the season gets underway at 15:15. This was a special experience for the 17-year-old, who shares the Mercedes-AMG with Kwanda Mokoena (ZAF): “I am delighted with my first pole in the ADAC GT Masters. I knew on the final lap that I had to give it everything. In the end, it all came together. It feels awesome.” Second place went to his 18-year-old team-mate Finn Wiebelhaus (Obertshausen).
Early on Saturday morning, spectators at the 4.318-kilometre circuit in the Austrian town of Spielberg were treated to an exciting qualifying. With low track temperatures around six degrees Celsius, the drivers headed out onto the track to get a feel for the conditions. The first quarter of the session saw Switzerland’s Jean-Luc D´Auria set the first benchmark in a Ferrari 296 GT3. It looked for a long time as though the Emil Frey Racing driver would start from the front of the grid. However, with time running out, the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 of Chilean Benjamin Hites hit the BMW M4 GT3 of Pedro Ebrahim (BRA/FK Performance). Ebrahim spun off into the gravel bed, resulting in a break in the action. Reis took the opportunity shortly before the end of the session to switch to wet-weather tyres – as did Wiebelhaus. This proved to be a stroke of genius. Both improved their times significantly to record a successful result for the team. Third place went to D´Auria, ahead of local Austrian favourite Max Hofer in an Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2 for Wolf-Racing. Completing the top five was Lithuanian Jonas Karklys (LT/Liqui Moly Team Engstler by NordVPN) in another Audi.
Qualifying was less successful for the title contenders: the second-placed pairing of Leon Köhler (Erlenbach am Main) and Maxime Oosten (NL/both FK Performance) finished tenth in a BMW M4 GT3, ahead of championship leaders Elias Seppänen (FIN) and Tom Kalender (Hamm/Sieg) in the Landgraf Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3. Television partner Sport1 will broadcast Saturday afternoon’s race live from 15:00 on German free-to-air TV. The race will also be streamed with German and English commentary on the free ADAC Motorsport YouTube channel youtube.com/@ADACMotorsports.
