HOCKENHEIM, Germany — The new champions Elias Seppänen and Tom Kalender delivered another brilliant performance on Sunday in the last race of the ADAC GT Masters season.
With their fifth victory at the Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg, the youngsters from Landgraf Motorsport in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 enjoyed a perfect end to the season.
The event was broadcast live by SPEED SPORT 1.
“Since we didn’t have to prove anything anymore, we were totally liberated and just wanted to have fun again in the final race. We definitely succeeded in doing that with the win,” said Seppänen, who went down in ADAC GT Masters history this year with the most points as the first winner of the “Road to DTM” classification. Kalender agreed: “It was a great and, above all, exciting race. We had a great fight with the BMW, which we were fortunate to win. In any case, it feels great to finish the last race of the season as winners again.”
Second place went to Maxime Oosten and Leon Köhler in the BMW M4 GT3 from FK Performance. Third place went to the two Swiss Jean-Luc D’Auria and Alain Valente in the Ferrari 296 GT3 from Emil Frey Racing. The team championship in the season was won by the Haupt Racing Team, which impressed with consistently good results throughout the year.
The start phase of the last race on the 4.574-kilometer-long track was characterized by a spectacular battle at the front of the field. Right at the beginning, Seppänen pushed past pole-setter Valente, who was able to regain his position but was ultimately defeated by the Mercedes-AMG and then also by Köhler’s BMW.
Valente then found himself in third place. The two beneficiaries then pulled away from the rest of the field. Due to the shorter downtime during the obligatory pit stop, however, ProAm driver Alexander Schwarzer in the Porsche 911 GT3 R from Fach Auto Tech took the lead. The Porsche driver also benefited from the intense three-way battle between Kalender in the Landgraf Mercedes-AMG, Oosten in the FK BMW and D’Auria in the Emil Frey Ferrari.
Toward the end, however, the gap between the leader and the driver shrank, so Kalender and Oosten saw their chance to overtake and took it. The two crossed the finish line in this order. “The fight with Tom was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for victory in the end, but we’re still happy with the result,” said Oosten.
After D’Auria and Juliano Holzem in the Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2 overtook the Fach Porsche, a heart-stopping finale for third place broke out. In a hard-fought duel, the Ferrari ultimately took the last remaining place on the podium. “It was a tough battle, but that’s what the series is all about and that’s what the fans want to see.
To end the season with another podium result is great,” said Valente, summing up his team-mate D’Auria’s final spurt. Schwarzer, who had put in a remarkable performance compared to the silver drivers up to that point, retired after an accident in the Sachs curve shortly before the end of the race.
The Holzem twins Sandro and Juliano took fourth place, ahead of the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 of Tim Zimmermann and the Chilean Benjamin Hites. Starting from 15th place, Finn Wiebelhaus and Jannes Fittje in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 made a strong comeback, as they did on Saturday, which took them up to sixth position.
Salman Owega and David Schumacher in the second Mercedes-AMG GT3 of the Haupt team finished in seventh place. The Kapfinger twins Johannes and Michael (both Passau) in the Porsche 911 GT3 R of the Joos by Twin Busch team reached eighth place, ahead of Denis Bulatov and Mike David Ortmann in the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Walkenhorst Motorsport.
Kwanda Mokoena and Max Reis drove their Mercedes-AMG GT3 from 14th position to 10th place. Pablo Schumm and Jonas Karklys in the Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2 from Liqui Moly Team Engstler by NordVPN won the ProAm classification.