3.629 kilomters racing track and 30 cars in one second - the 5,000 approved fans and the others on Sport1 (German TV channel) could follow with their own eyes that it would be tight at the Nürburgring. Thus it is all the more to be appreciated that the KÜS Team75 Bernhard from Landstuhl could reach a strong result with the places four and 14 at the Saturday race of the ADAC GT Masters in the Eifel. The Porsche 911 GT3 R with the starting number 17 under Porsche works driver Simona De Silvestro from Switzerland and the Austrian Ex-Porsche Junior Klaus Bachler (29) missed with fourth position the podium by a hari's breadth. The sister car with starting number 18 under David Jahn (28) from Leipzig and Jannes Fittje (21) from Langenhain took 14th place and two championship points. Things went better on Sunday - but in the end it turned out to be a big deal.
But first let us take a look on Saturday: In another extremely tight qualifying in the "League of the Super Sports Cars" - 27 of the 35 participants were within a single second - Klaus Bachler placed the Porsche with the 17 in third place. He was able to maintain this position despite tough duels and a safety car phase and during the mandatory pit stop Simona stubbornly defended her possible podium place and was still ahead at the restart after another safety car phase. In the last lap, however, she had to bow to a competitor. Youngster Jannes reached position 19 in the qualifying with the sister car number 18 in the field of 35. In his stint he was able to make up a few places and was in 16th place when the pit stop window opened. David took over and worked his way up to 14th place until the finish.
So all in all a good result for KÜS Team75 Bernhard. How won, so melted away - this motto, however, applied to the result of the Sunday race: On the track, the Porsche 911 GT3 R with starting number 18 drove onto the podium with David Jahn and Jannes Fittje, at the green table the duo was relegated to 18th place. The sister car with starting number 17 driven by Simona De Silvestro and Klaus Bachler finished in 17th place. How did that work exactly? David had achieved a strong sixth place in qualifying. His start to the race was the maneuver of the day: from the third row, he took the assembled competition by surprise with a rocket launch and took the lead. Even a safety car phase imposed shortly afterwards did not slow down his forward thrust, he kept the lead until the mandatory pit stop. There Jannes took over the Porsche.
When driving out of the pits, a competitor hurried up from behind, Jannes cut in directly in front of him. The stewards wanted to decide whether this maneuver was to be rated as an "unsafe release", an unsafe launch. Jannes was not impressed, kept his nerve and drove his stint to a sovereign and flawless end thus rewarding the first podium of the season for the KÜS Team75 Bernhard. A good two hours after the end of the race, the decision was published: 30 seconds time penalty, which resulted in the crash from second to 18th place. Of course we finally want to tell our readers who won on Saturday and Sunday.
And who won the races?
After the first race, the Porsche 911 GT3 R of the team SSR Performance and the drivers Ammermüller and Engelhard were the winner. It was driven at dry weather and at around 23 degrees air temperature, so exactly 22.6 degrees at the start and 23.2 degrees Celius at the target entry; always shown separately in the official result lists. It was around 27 degrees and dry on Sunday when the Precote Herberth Motorsport team with drivers Renauer and Müller behind the wheel saw the checkered flag after driving 40 laps. Mick Wishofer was the best junior on Saturday; Charles Weerts could claim this classification for himself on Sunday. On the weekend of September 18th to 20th, 2020, the ADAC GT Masters will continue at the Hockenheimring. We look forward to it and in the meantime recommend visiting our web shop.