Paddock radar: ADAC GT Masters, Lausitzring

• Reunion for ex-Formula 1 team-mates Frentzen and Wendlinger
• ADAC GT Masters warms up for the start with two oval turns
• Superhuman effort at Nissan team, Schulze Motorsport

Reunion for old friends: The career paths of the two ex- Formula 1 drivers Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Karl Wendlinger are closely linked; in the late 1980s, the man from Mönchengladbach and the Austrian competed against one other in the German Formula 3 championship. Subsequently, they were members of the legendary Mercedes-Benz Junior Team, raced as team-mates with Sauber in F1 and with Aston Martin Racing in the Le Mans 24 Hours. The paths of two Formula 1 veterans crossed yet again at the ADAC Masters Weekend at the Lausitzring when Wendlinger put in a guest stint in the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG prepared by Seyffarth Motorsport. However, an actual scrap on the track between Frentzen in the Corvette and Wendlinger in the Gullwing Mercedes has been postponed after Frentzen’s team-mate, Andreas Wirth, had an accident on Saturday in the red and white Corvette, which cannot be repaired locally. Frentzen / Wirth have to miss Sunday’s race.

Frentzen at the Frauenkirche: Heinz-Harald Frentzen was busy on behalf of the ADAC GT Masters last Thursday evening in Dresden. Along with team-mate Andreas Wirth and Mercedes-Benz driver Jan Seyffarth, the Corvette pilot helped local media representatives get in ‘top gear’ for the ADAC Masters Weekend at the Lausitzring as they answered questions in front of the Church of Our Lady on Dresden’s Neumarkt.

‘Oval premiere’ for ADAC GT Masters: The ADAC GT Masters contestants are already familiar with Turn 3, the corner where the high-speed oval circuit enters the home straight. For the first time in the series, Turn 2 will also be included, albeit only for the second of two formation laps. In order to get the large field of 40 supercars optimally lined up for the start, race organisers had decided to have them approach the grid via Turn 2 on an extra formation lap.

Wedding bells at ALPINA: The BMW ALPINA B6 of Dino Lunardi and Maxime Martin rolled onto the starting grid for Race 1 on Saturday with a white ribbon on its radio antenna. The reason for the decoration was that ALPINA team manager Kiran Hörth had skipped the race at the Lausitzring to get married over the weekend.

Express delivery for home race: Schulze Motorsport had to pull out all the stops to get their Nissan GT-R ready for action in their home race. After discovering damage to the rear suspension sustained in qualifying, it seemed as if the weekend was over for the Tagewerben-based team. However, a quick phone call to a supplier in the UK was enough to have the relevant spare sent by overnight courier. It arrived at the Lausitzring at 11am on Saturday. In just 60 minutes, Schulze Motorsport had made the necessary repair so that, when the pit lane opened at five minutes past twelve, the Japanese car was ready to take up position on the grid. The brothers Tobias and Michael Schulze rewarded their team with a P22 finish in Race 1.