After record pole in the Grasser Lamborghini: Hites and Mapelli crown perfect Sunday with first win of the season

• Maiden win for the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 in the ADAC GT Masters
• Finn Gehrsitz and Sven Müller lead the championship at the halfway point
• ADAC GT Masters thrills over 130,000 visitors at the ADAC Truck Grand Prix

Nürburg. Race six of this season’s ADAC GT Masters went down to the wire, before Benjamin Hites (CHL) and Marco Mapelli (I) were able to celebrate their first success of the season at the Nürburgring. Earlier this morning, Mapelli had secured the 50th pole position for Lamborghini since the GT series was launched in 2007. Now the duo from the GRT Grasser Racing Team claimed the first victory for the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 in the ADAC GT Masters. “It felt absolutely unbelievable when I crossed the finish line in first place. I immediately thought of my family in Chile. First place was really hard work. The BMW behind me was closing all the time, and I had to give it everything. I am glad that was enough in the end,” said Hites. The 24-year-old became the first Chilean driver to lift the winner’s trophy in the ADAC GT Masters. Second place went to Sandro Holzem (Polch) and DTM driver Marco Wittmann (Fürth/both Project 1) in a BMW M4 GT3. Finn Gehrsitz (Stuttgart) and Sven Müller (Bingen/both Team Joos by Racemotion) joined them on the podium in third place. The duo in the Porsche 911 GT3 R lead the championship at the halfway point.

The conditions were ideal for the festival of motorsport in the Eifel Mountains: on Sunday afternoon, the ADAC GT Masters drivers lined up in sunshine and 21 degrees Celsius. In the packed grandstands, more than 130,000 visitors to the ADAC Truck Grand Prix were thrilled by the captivating racing in the ADAC GT Masters. Pole-sitter Mapelli was first to reach turn one at the iconic 3.629-kilometre circuit. Mapelli remained alert right through to the mandatory pit stop, and simply refused to allow the pressure applied by Wittmann to knock him out of his stride. After a late driver changeover, Hites took over at the wheel and went on to claim the first win of the season for Gottfried Grasser’s team from Austria.

Second place went to Holzem and Wittmann. The BMW duo was embroiled in a thrilling battle with the Grasser Lamborghini throughout the full 60-minute race. “It is great to head home with second place. In the first section of the race, I was trying to close the gap to the Lamborghini ahead of me by setting fast lap times. Unfortunately, we came up just short of the win, but we can definitely live with this successful weekend on what was our first outing in the ADAC GT Masters,” said two-time DTM champion Wittmann. Müller and ADAC Stiftung Sport driver Gehrsitz finished third to score valuable points towards the championship, which they now lead. “After the difficult Saturday, the podium is a real relief for us. I had a fair battle with Marco at the start, which was motorsport of the highest standard. It is nice to lead the championship at the halfway point. We want to continue to score heavily in the second half of the season. That will be the key to success, right down to the last race,” said Müller. Fourth place went to Porsche drivers Tim Zimmermann (Langenargen) and Jaxon Evans (NZ/both Huber Racing).

Schnitzelalm Racing were rewarded for a strong guest appearance in the ADAC GT Masters with fifth place. Colin Caresani (NL) and Marcel Marchewicz (Schwetzingen) guided the Mercedes-AMG GT3 into the top five from eighth place. Eduardo Coseteng (PHL) and Ben Green (GB/both Schubert Motorsport) crossed the finish line sixth in their BMW M4 GT3. They were followed in seventh by the Lamborghini duo of Maximilian Paul (Dresden) and Simon Connor Primm (Großschirma/both Paul Motorsport). The eighth pair home were Mercedes-AMG drivers and Saturday’s winners Salman Owega (Cologne) and Elias Seppänen (FIN) from Landgraf Motorsport. Kim-Luis Schramm (Meuspath) and Neil Verhagen (USA/both FK Performance Motorsport) ended the race in ninth place in their BMW M4 GT3. The last place in the top ten went to Alain Valente (CHE) and Ralf Aron (EST) in the Haupt Racing Team’s Mercedes-AMG GT3.

After the sixth race of the season at the Nürburgring, the ADAC GT Masters now takes a summer break. Round four will take place on the high-profile DTM platform at the Sachsenring from 8th to 10th September. The ADAC’s iconic GT series then heads to the Red Bull Ring in Austria for its only event outside of Germany.