The racing series organised by the ADAC and Creventic produced some fascinating facts and figures in the 2023 season. 52 drivers and 17 teams lined up in the Prototype Cup Germany.

Gary Hauser (31/LUX) and Markus Pommer (32/Untereisesheim, both Racing Experience) were crowned champions in the 2023 Prototype Cup Germany. The Duqueine D08 drivers won four of the season’s twelve races and made a further five appearances on the podium. Here are a few more fascinating facts and figures on season two of the Prototype Cup Germany.

More multiple winners: Oscar Tunjo (27/COL) and Julien Apothéloz (22/CHE, both Van Ommen Racing by DataLab) also one more than one race in the Prototype Cup Germany. The Duqueine duo won the Saturday race at the Hockenheimring and in Oschersleben, as well as the Sunday race at the Nürburgring. They ended the season as runners-up in the overall standings.

Four pole positions: Valentino Catalano (18/Westheim) emerged as a real qualifying specialist in 2023. He contested six qualifying sessions for the DKR Engineering team at the wheel of a Duqueine, and secured the front spot on the grid in four of them. That is a success rate of 75 percent. The former ADAC Formula 4 driver claimed one victory over the course of the twelve races. That came on the Sunday in Oschersleben.

Record lap: Laurents Hörr (26/Gerlingen, Koiranen Kemppi Motorsport) took exactly 1:18.461 minutes to complete a lap of the 3.667-kilometre track in Oschersleben in qualifying for the Saturday race. In doing so, the Duqueine driver set a new lap record for closed sports cars at the circuit in the Magdeburg Börde region. The old record of 1:19.335 minutes was set by Uwe Alzen in a Porsche 911 GT1 back in 1998.

Double record: Markus Pommer’s time of 1:30.019 minutes, set in qualifying for the Saturday race in Assen, was a lap record for smaller prototypes at the Dutch circuit. That makes him a double record holder. Back in 2011 he set the Formula 3 lap record of 1:31.903 minutes at TT Circuit Assen – a record that still stands to this day.

International drivers: A total of 52 drivers started in the 2023 Prototype Cup Germany. They represented 18 different countries: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Great Britain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Spain, Portugal, the USA, Canada, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Columbia, and Morocco.

Four ladies: Girl power in LMP3 – in Courtney Crone (22/USA, Gebhardt Motorsport), Beitske Visser (28/NLD, BHK Motorsport), Belén García Espinar (24/ESP) and Gabriela Jílková (28/CZE, both Van Ommen Racing by DataLab), no fewer than four women lined up in the series over the course of the season. Jilková became the first female driver to win a race in the series in Zandvoort.

International teams: The Prototype Cup Germany also had an international look to it when it came to the teams. The starting grid featured 17 teams in 2023. They came from Germany, Austria, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Belgium, Finland, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

Interest from guest starters: The 17 teams also included five outfits making a guest appearance in the Prototype Cup Germany: Reiter Engineering, MMi Motorsport and AF2 Motorsport in Zandvoort, and Frikadelli Racing and Bretton Racing at the Nürburgring.

10:2:0 for Duqueine: Three of the four homologated LMP3 models lined up in the Prototype Cup Germany, in the form of the Duqueine D08, Ginetta G61-LT-P3 and Ligier JS P320. The most successful of these was the Duqueine with ten race wins, followed by the Ligier with two. The Ginetta failed to win a race.

Consistency is key: Champions Pommer/Hauser were also the only duo to finish in the points in every race in 2023. Wolfgang Payr (59/AUT) also achieved this feat. However, he had two different team-mates in the Racing Experience Duqueine over the course of the season.

A close affair: The closest victory in the 2023 season came in the Saturday race at the Norisring, when Pommer and Hauser crossed the line just 0.452 seconds ahead of Belén García Espinar and Xavier Lloveras (23/ESP) in a Duqueine. Less than a second separated the winner from the runner-up on a further two occasions this year.

Huge lead: The biggest winning margin of the season came in the Sunday race at Circuit Zandvoort in the Netherlands, when Lloveras and Jílková crossed the finish line a full 11.394 seconds clear of Valentino Catalano and Robin Rogalski (23/POL).

Plenty of kilometres under the belt: A total of 416 race laps were completed in the 2023 season. Multiplied by the respective track lengths, this equates to over 1661 kilometres. That is roughly the same distance as travelling on motorways to the first four circuits on this year’s calendar (Hockenheim, Oschersleben, Zandvoort and Norisring) one after another.