Rast/Mamerow win as rain makes Nürburgring race a lottery

• First victory of 2012 ADAC GT Masters season for Audi
• Tense final lap: Top 3 separated by only 1.6 seconds at finish line
• Porsche driver Swen Dolenc wins amateur classification

Typical Eifel weather contrived to turn the first of two ADAC GT Masters races on the Nürburgring sprint circuit, staged as part of the ADAC Truck-Grand-Prix weekend, into something of a lottery. In difficult conditions that started out wet and then gradually dried out, René Rast (25, Frankfurt) and Christian Mamerow (27, Waltrop / MAMEROW Racing) in their Audi R8 notched up the first victory of the season for the four-ringed marque. The BMW ALPINA B6 of Dino Lunardi (33, France) and Maxime Martin (26, Belgium, ALPINA) crossed the line in a photo finish with the Porsche 911 driven by Christian Engelhart (25, Kösching) and Sean Edwards (25, GB / Team Geyer Weinig - Schütz Motorsport), both of them just 1.6 seconds behind the winning car. “You need a certain amount of skill to win, but also a bit of luck, and we had that today,” said Mamerow afterwards, clearly delighted with his maiden ADAC Masters victory.

Key facts, Nürburgring Sprint Track
Length of track: 3,618 metres
Weather: 20°C, rain

Pole position in Race 1: Sebastian Asch (kfzteile24 MS RACING Team-Mercedes Benz SLS AMG GT3), 01:26.555 mins
Winner of Race 1: René Rast / Christian Mamerow (MAMEROW Racing-Audi R8)
Fastest race lap: Maximilian Götz (kfzteile24 MS RACING Team-Mercedes Benz SLS AMG), 01:31.696 mins

Rast lays foundation for victory with brilliant passing move

The forty drivers on the grid for the seventh round of the 2012 Super Sports Car League had to wait until the end of the second lap before they could put their foot down, with the race starting behind the safety car because of standing water on the track. As the safety car pulled into the pit lane at the end of Lap 2, René Rast seized his chance; while still in the Mercedes Arena, the Audi driver overtook the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG of pole-sitter Sebastian Asch (26, Ammerbuch / kfzteile24 MS RACING Team) on the outside in spectacular fashion. Once he had gained the lead, Rast used all his experience on a waterlogged Nürburgring to open up an 8.1-second lead over the pursuing Asch before handing over to team-mate Mamerow.

During the second stint, the track was gradually drying out despite the occasional rain shower, and Mamerow came under pressure. Maxime Martin in a BMW ALPINA and Sean Edwards in a Porsche 911 began to close the gap but ultimately had to settle for second and third. “The start of the race was tremendous fun,” said race winner Rast. “I was amazed that Sebastian Asch took such an extreme inside line, which allowed me to overtake him comfortably on the outside. After that, I pushed as hard as I could in order to build as big a lead as possible.” In the second stint, Christian Mamerow had to contend not only with pressure from behind but also nurse his wet tyres on the drying track. “I was constantly having to seek out wet patches to conserve my tyres, while at the same time taking care to keep the chasing bunch at a distance. One of the tail-enders held me up a bit, so in the end it was rather more exciting than I would have liked.”

2011 winners Frankenhout and Heyer best Mercedes-Benz duo

With their fourth place, Christiaan Frankenhout (30, NL) und Kenneth Heyer (32, Wegberg / HEICO Motorsport) just missed out on a podium but had the consolation of knowing that they were the quickest of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG pairings. Finishing one place behind in fifth place were defending champions Alexandros Margaritis (27, Cologne) and Lance David Arnold (26, Duisburg / SCHÖNER WOHNEN Polarweiss Team HEICO), also in a Mercedes Gullwing, who will at least be relieved to have secured their best result of the season to date. Margaritis pulled past the BMW Z4 of Claudia Hürtgen (40, Aachen) / Dominik Schwager (35, München / Schubert Motorsport) on the last lap to push them down to sixth.

Sebastian Asch and team-mate Maximilian Götz (26, Uffenheim) were left to rue a missed opportunity. After holding on to second position throughout the first stint, Asch arrived seven seconds late for the driver changeover and was hit with a stop-and-go penalty. Running on slicks on a drying track, Götz clawed his way back up to seventh place.

Finishing eighth and ninth respectively, the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMGs of Dominik Baumann (19, Austria) / Hari Proczyk (36, Austria / HEICO Motorsport) and Andreas Simonsen (22, Sweden) / Maximilian Buhk (19, Dassendorf / HEICO Junior Team) ensured a respectable team result for HEICO. All of the Gullwings entered by Nürburgring-based outfit got into the points in their home race. The last pair into the Top Ten were Mario Farnbacher (20, Ansbach) and Niclas Kentenich (23, Neuss / Farnbacher ESET Racing) who managed to score one point in their first outing with a brand new Porsche 911; this was despite having been given a time penalty for an incident at the start of the race.

Swen Dolenc bags third win of season in amateur standings

Porsche driver Swen Dolenc (44, Maulbronn / FACH AUTO TECH) had a convincing victory in the amateur classification. The Porsche dealer ended the race a good 13 seconds up on the Aston Martin V12 Vantage in second place driven by Kristian Poulsen (36, DK/Young Driver AMR) who currently leads the amateur championship. A time penalty robbed Poulsen of a possible victory when he was handed a drive-through after his Aston Martin made contact with the Corvette of championship leader Diego Alessi leader (40, Italy / Callaway Competition). In third place and making it onto the amateur podium for the first time was René Bourdeaux (Team GT3 Kasko) from Munich in a Porsche 911.

Second chance for Mercedes-Benz to secure first win of season on Sunday

In Race 2 on Sunday, Sebastian Asch and Maximilian Götz have a second chance to turn pole position into victory. The Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG with Götz behind the wheel shares the front row of the grid with the Porsche 911 of Martin Ragginger (24, Austria / FACH AUTO TECH). On Row 2 are Maxime Martin in a BMW ALPINA just ahead of Jan Seyffarth (26, Querfurt / SMS Seyffarth Motorsport) in a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG.

ADAC GT Masters on TV: All 16 races of the ADAC GT Masters are broadcast live at 12.15pm on Saturdays and Sundays in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on free-to-air TV channel kabel eins. Sports channel SPORT1 will feature highlights of the ADAC GT Masters from the Nürburgring in the ADAC Masters Weekend Magazine on 21st July at 12.15pm. In addition, live timing from all practice sessions and races to supplement live TV broadcasts can be found at www.adac-gt-masters.de