BMW dominates qualifying at Slovakia Ring

• BMW man Max Sandritter claims maiden ADAC GT Masters pole
• Jens Klingmann and Dominik Baumann reserve front row of Sunday’s grid for BMW
• Ex-DTM driver Mathias Lauda starts from 19th on his ADAC GT Masters debut

Orechová Potôň, Slovakia: Max Sandritter (25, Germany) and Jens Klingmann (24, Germany) driving a PIXUM Team Schubert BMW Z4 dominated the qualifying session as the ADAC GT Masters resumed after its long summer break at the Slovakia Ring, 20 miles east of Bratislava. The BMW team-mates booked the front slot on the grid for the two races to be contested on Saturday and Sunday (live coverage on kabel eins starting at 11.45am both days) at the longest and fastest circuit on the ADAC GT Masters calendar. “These two pole positions are our reward after a difficult first half to the season,” said a jubilant Sandritter after qualifying. “We’ve fought hard and we’ve kept getting up again after repeatedly being knocked down. Now we have the best possible prospects for both races.”

Qualifying 1 for Race 1 on Saturday:

Pole position for the first ADAC GT Masters race after the two-month summer break was a hard-fought affair. Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Corvette had performed well in qualifying until Sandritter in his BMW surpassed all of them with a blistering lap to displace the RWT Racing Team Corvette of David Jahn (23, Germany) by a margin of 0.311 seconds. “At last I’ve managed to secure a pole position in the ADAC GT Masters,” said Sandritter. “First place on the grid is great, but it won’t be easy to defend at the start of the race on Saturday, because the home straight here at the Slovakia Ring is not only extremely wide but also very long.”

Christian Engelhart (27, Germany) put his GW IT Racing Team Schütz Motorsport Porsche 911 into third place ahead of Claudia Hürtgen (42, Germany) – her P4 in the second PIXUM Team Schubert BMW Z4 capped an excellent team performance. The two Mercedes-Benz SLS AMGs driven by Nico Bastian (24, Germany) for ROWE Racing and Luca Stolz (19, Germany) for HTP Motorsport start from the third row.

Qualifying 2 for Race 2 on Sunday:

In qualifying for Sunday’s race, Jens Klingmann secured a second pole for the BMW specialists of PIXUM Team Schubert. Klingmann set the best time right at the start of the session. Meanwhile, Austria’s Dominik Baumann (21) was booking the second slot, ensuring a lock-out for the team. Klingmann had a nervous time waiting for confirmation of his fourth ADAC GT Masters pole: “I went out on track right at the start of qualifying, had a clear lap and was on course to record the fastest time. But then the session was interrupted as a result of a Porsche spinning into the gravel. I was a bit anxious about whether I could manage to repeat my fast lap after the restart. But when qualifying got going again, I had a free run. I could see from my sector times on the display panel in the car that it was working out OK. After the difficult first half of the season, we deserve this.”

Behind the two BMWs on the front row are three American ‘muscle cars’: defending champion and race winner from last year’s Slovakia Ring fixture Daniel Keilwitz (25, Germany) will be starting from third place in his Callaway Competition Corvette ahead of ex-Formula 1 driver Tomas Enge (37) from the Czech Republic in a Chevrolet Camaro fielded by Reiter Engineering and Italy’s Diego Alessi (42) in a second Callaway Competition Corvette.

Championship leader René Rast (27, Germany) qualified sixth as the fastest of the Audi drivers. Rast’s Prosperia C Abt team-mate Kelvin van der Linde (18) from South Africa starts from 13th in the first race on Saturday.

Former DTM driver Mathias Lauda (33, Austria), making his ADAC GT Masters debut in an HTP Motorsport Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, is two places further back on the grid in 19th. The son of Niki Lauda is standing in for Heinz-Harald Frentzen who has to miss the Slovakia Ring weekend due to a knee operation. Lauda shares the Gullwing cockpit with precocious talent Luca Stolz.