The Oschersleben season opener of the ADAC GT Masters in facts and figures

• Super Sports Car League will get its 13th season under way in Oschersleben at the weekend
• Oschersleben is traditionally the venue for the ADAC GT Masters season opener
• There will be a strong field with 31 amazing GT cars from eight different manufacturers in the line-up

Munich: GT racing will finally get under way again at the weekend in the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben when the ADAC GT Masters starts its new season. We take a look at a whole range of impressive numbers, dates and statistics for the Super Sports Car League. SPORT1 will broadcast the two races from Oschersleben live and in full on Saturday and Sunday at 1.00 pm. Racing can also be watched online as livestream at sport1.de, adac.de/motorsport and youtube.com/adac.

- This will be the 15th time that the ADAC GT Masters has held its races in the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben. The circuit there has been the venue for the season opener twelve times. It was only in the inaugural year of the series that the ADAC GT Masters opened the season at the Nürburgring.

- The 2019 calendar features seven meetings with two races each weekend, taking in Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria and the Netherlands.

- Eight former ADAC GT Masters champions will be competing at Oschersleben: Christopher Haase (2007), Sebastian Asch (2012 and 2015), Maximilian Götz (2012), Daniel Keilwitz (2013), Kelvin van der Linde (2014), Luca Ludwig (2015), Christopher Mies (2016) and defending champion Robert Renauer.

- With 22 wins, Daniel Keilwitz, who will drive for Aston Martin this year, has won more races than any other driver in the ADAC GT Masters and also holds the record for the most victories in a season, having taken six wins in 2014. In all, 31 drivers have achieved at least one victory in the series, which is exactly half of the starting field in total.

- Luca Ludwig holds the record for the most wins at Oschersleben. Currently with Ferrari, he has won four times at the venue, including twice on his ADAC GT Masters debut ten years ago.

- German driver Christian Engelhart is another Oschersleben specialist. He has already won three times there and holds the record for best time in qualifying (1.23.362 minutes). He and Lamborghini team-mate Mirko Bortolotti also share the lap record for the ADAC GT Masters with a time of 1:25.306 minutes in the Motorsport Arena. What’s totally amazing is that Engelhart set the record in 2018 in the first race, and then in the second round, Bortolotti went out and posted exactly the same time to the thousandth of a second.

- Twelve drivers will be making their first appearance in the ADAC GT Masters at Oschersleben – Mattia Drudi, Valentin Hasse-Clot, Arlind Hoti, Maximilian Paul, Thomas Preining, Aidan Read, Simon Reicher, Hugo de Sadeleer, Carrie Schreiner, Wolfgang Triller, Fabian Vettel and Mick Wishofer.

- Quite a few drivers are returning this year to compete again in the Super Sports Car League, most notably, five-time race winners Maxime Martin and David Jahn. Martin has won three times at Oschersleben and last started in the series in 2012. Jahn was championship runner-up in 2016 and is back after a break of two seasons. Also returning are Jeroen Bleekemolen, who took the only win for a Bentley in the series at Oschersleben in 2015, and Matteo Cairoli, plus former ADAC Formula 4 champion Marvin Dienst and Kelvin Snoeks.

- Two drivers will play a double role this season, acting also as Team Principals. Sports car world champion Timo Bernhard will compete for KÜS Team75 Bernhard which he and his father, Rüdiger, jointly own while fellow Porsche driver Jan-Erik Slooten will line up for his team, Iron Force Racing.

- Once again this season, the ADAC GT Masters starting grid has a very international flavour with drivers from 13 different countries in the Oschersleben line-up. Germany has the most drivers competing in the series, 31 in all, which is exactly half of the field, followed by Switzerland with seven, then Italy and Austria with five each.

- Audi driver Ricardo Feller from Switzerland is the youngest in the field for the third year in a row. He will be 18 years old when the season starts.

- The Bavarian, Wolfgang Triller, will be the oldest. He is new to the series and had his 51st birthday at the end of March.

- T3 Motorsport will have the youngest driver pairing in the field. Their two rookies, Maximilian Paul and Simon Reicher, are both 19 years old. The greatest age difference between two team-mates is at Aust Motorsport where there are 31 years between Wolfgang Triller and Arlind Hoti, who share the Audi with start number 4.

- The 31 cars contesting the ADAC GT Masters made by Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Corvette, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche produce more than 17,000 bhp between them.

- Once again, the Audi R8 LMS is the most popular GT3 vehicle in the ADAC GT Masters with 13 cars, followed by the Mercedes-AMG GT3 with five and the new Porsche 911 GT3 R with four cars.

- Audi is also the most successful brand in the series with a total of 37 victories, followed by Corvette with 32 and Lamborghini with 29 wins.

- Aston Martin will line up again in the ADAC GT Masters for the first time since 2013. The British luxury brand has achieved two victories in the GT series to date, in 2008 and 2012, both times at the Sachsenring.

- Three teams, HCB-Rutronik Racing, Propeak Performance and T3 Motorsport, will debut in the Super Sports Car League in 2019.

- 19 teams will contest the series this year. 16 of them come from Germany, two from Austria and one from the Czech Republic.