22.09.2020KÜS Team 75 Bernhard: A weekend in Hockenheim

Last weekend, the ADAC organized the third round of its GT Masters and chose the Hockenheimring for this. Two days, which started joyful for the KÜS Team75 Bernhard, because Georg "Goa" Bellof, the brother of the unforgotten Stefan Bellof, was excited for a very special reason. In the end, Christian Engelhart (33) from Starnberg and Michael Ammermüller (34) from Rotthalmünster won on the Porsche 911 GT3 R for SSR Performance on Sunday and thus climbed to the top of the table. Patric Niederhauser (28) from Switzerland and Kelvin van der Linde (24) from South Africa parked the Audi R8 LMS behind on position two. At the end of the Sunday race, however, they were on the top podium after their first win of the season: The champions of the previous year are now leading the drivers' standings for the first time this year.

The KÜS Team75 Bernhard has scored points with both cars in the Saturday race of the ADAC GT Masters and achieved a strong team result. Porsche works-driver Simona De Silvestro from Switzerland and Ex-Porsche-Junior Klaus Bachler (29) from Austria reached fourth position with the Porsche 911 GT3 R with starting number 17. This car received a sepcial kind of attention on this weekend, because it was reminiscent of the unforgotten racing driver Stefan Bellof with a special design. Team boss Timo Bernhard counts to the big admirers of the endurance world champion from 1984, who won in the Formula 2 in 1982. But back to the ADAC GT Masters and the KÜS Team75 Bernhard: David Jahn (28) from Leipzig and Jannes Fittje (21) from Langenhain achieved position twelve with the sister car, the 911 GT3 R with starting number 18.

The qualifying shows how the placements are to be evaluated, because in the very tight qualification - 26 cars were within a second - Bachler drove out a strong seventh position. You really have to think abou this: 26 cars within a single second! In a brilliant first lap, the Austrian made up two places. Even when restarting after a break in the race, he held his position in the front field and came in fifth for the mandatory pit stop. Simona took over the Porsche and started the race in fourth place. Despite some extremely tough duels that earned a competitor a warning, Simona defended this position to the finish. In the Porsche with starting number 18, Jannes had achieved starting position 15. After the driver change, David Jahn was able to finish Saturday's race in 12th position with this car.

On Sunday, the league of the super sports cars went into its second round of the weekend. The KÜS Team75 Bernhard is happy about the points in the championship, but less about the accident-related end from the car in the Bellof-design. While the Porsche 911 GT3 R with starting number 18 under David Jahn and youngster Jannes Fittje achieved place eleven and received points, the sister car was pulled out of the race due to a serious accident on the last lap. As for the details: In qualifying, which was stopped prematurely shortly before the end with the red flag, David finished fifth. In the very turbulent start phase, however, he could not hold this position and fell back to eleventh place. Jannes took over the cockpit and was able to keep this place with a faultless drive to the finish.

The KÜS Team75 Bernhard on Sunday

It looked completely different for the starting number 17. Simona had bad luck in the hotly contested qualifying and couldn't get past 23rd position on the grid. During the race, she fought her way up two places in close duels up to the mandatory pit stop. Klaus took over and started his race to catch up. He was able to make up space by space and had already reached the points in the last lap in 15th place when he collided with two competitors on the straight after the hairpin and hit the guard rails violently. Fortunately, Klaus was unharmed in the spectacular crash: “I had a good run, the three of us entered the hairpin. I left room for the other two at the corner exit and was on the edge of the track. I ran out of space and we collided. Unfortunately I hit. Sorry for the team! We wanted to score points and tried everything. It went stupid; a racing accident!"

Team boss Timo Bernhard commented on Saturday as follows: “Both cars fought nicely, with our No. 17 we just missed the podium. No. 18 has fought its way up nicely and scored good points again with twelfth place. Tomorrow we will aim for the podium again and keep pushing!” With this goal of pushing further, the two-time endurance world champion and two-time Le Mans winner also finished on Sunday: “The day had started well with David's qualification. At the start he was unfortunately pushed out several times unfairly. Nevertheless, he and Jannes brought the car to P11. Our number 17 has fought its way forward. Unfortunately Klaus had a collision on the last lap. The car is pretty destroyed. We keep pushing!" On October 2nd to 4th, 2020 the KÜS Team75 Bernhard will have the opportunity to do so at the Sachsenring.

Here: Click to the modelcars of the KÜS Team75 Bernhard