Prosperia C Abt Racing: ADAC GT Masters team champions

• Audi outfit achieves win in ADAC GT Masters team standings in debut year
• Third ADAC GT Masters title for Christian Abt
• Prosperia C Abt Racing experience highs and lows in Hockenheim

From nothing to the team title in just 173 days: Prosperia C Abt Racing made its first public appearance at the official ADAC GT Masters pre-season test session on 9th April at the etropolis Motorsport Arena Oschersleben. Nearly six months later, the Frankfurt-based Audi team has secured the title in the ADAC GT Masters team standings in its debut year. A second place for double race winner René Rast and Christopher Mies in the Audi R8 assured the team led by former ADAC GT Masters champion, Christian Abt and entrepreneur, Slobodan Cvetkovic, the title in the most competitive category. The Audi team experienced a roller coaster ride at the finale with all three Audi R8 retiring in Saturday’s first race, but Lady Luck decided to smile again on the Audi team in the season’s last race.

“I have never experienced such a weekend before, one minute we were down, the next we were up,” said Cvetkovic about the finale. “I stopped believing we could win the title when all three cars retired yesterday, but the bad luck left us today, and the team did a great job. I dreamed last night that we would secure two podiums and that’s what happened. Everything went just perfectly today, and I am very happy.”

This is the third ADAC GT Masters title for former DTM driver Christian Abt after winning the drivers’ championship in 2009 and the team championship in 2010 with Abt Sportsline. Abt returned to the Super Sports Cars League as a driver last year but exchanged the cockpit for the pit wall this year and went back to being team boss. Abt: “I treated myself to some time out in 2011, but it was not for me in the long run. So I returned to the 2012 ADAC GT Masters and to an Audi team that Slobodan was engaged in. We have since become firm friends. During the winter, we put our heads together to see what we could do this year.”

Cvetkovic and Abt set up Prosperia C Abt Racing just before the start of the season. Abt: “Slobodan gave me a free hand in building the team and put his trust in me. However, as team principal in charge of a new structure, I first had to win the confidence of the drivers, engineers and mechanics.”

The debut of the newly formed team went better than expected at the start of the season. Christopher Mies and René Rast won the season’s opening race and that was followed by a second success at the Sachsenring. On the way to the team title, the six drivers of the Audi team have achieved eight podium finishes in all.

Even after the run of bad luck in Saturday’s race, Abt knew that his team could still do it in the finale: “We have a brilliant team, good drivers and cars, and I knew that it would work out in the end. The pit stops were perfect, the cars and the drivers were consistently fast from the first to the last lap. Establishing a new team in a relatively short space of time was a big challenge, but we have all climbed mountains and done it relatively successfully. Looking at today’s results makes me feel very proud.”