One-two victory for Audi outfit kfzteile24 MS RACING at Nürburgring

• Stoll and Basseng finish first with team-mates Dobitsch and Sandström as runners-up

• Porsche man Bachler closes gap on championship leaders Ludwig and Asch

• Weishaupt wins Gentlemen class in Audi

Nürburg: Orange was the colour of the day at the Nürburgring as kfzteile24 MS RACING took the Sunday honours on the fifth ADAC GT Masters race weekend of 2015. After claiming Saturday’s win in the Eifel, the Audi outfit hammered home their superiority as Florian Stoll (34, GER) and Marc Basseng (36, GER) crossed the line just ahead of Race 1 winners Daniel Dobitsch (31, AUT) and Edward Sandström (36, SWE), making it a one-two finish in a rain-affected race. “This victory tastes very sweet, because it was hard-won,” said a delighted Basseng. “No-one was doing us any favours right from the first lap. With our team-mates taking second place, that rounded off an almost perfect weekend. At last, our team seems to have made the breakthrough.” Klaus Bachler (24, AUT) and Martin Ragginger (27, AUT) in the GW IT Racing Team Schütz Motorsport Porsche 911 finished in third place, thereby closing the gap on championship leaders Luca Ludwig (26, GER) and Sebastian Asch (29, GER) who came tenth in the Team Zakspeed Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG.

Porsche loses chance of victory with late pit stop

The Nürburgring showed its trickier side for the second race of the weekend, with rain once again falling throughout. Bachler in the Porsche 911 started from pole and maintained his lead but came under immediate pressure from Nicki Thiim (26, DK) in a C.Abt Racing Audi R8. The Porsche driver was able to catch his breath when the safety car came out on track after a collision between the BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert Z4 of Uwe Alzen (47, GER) and the C.Abt Racing Audi R8 of Kelvin after Linde (19, ZA). After the restart, however, Bachler was no longer able to fend off the challenge from Thiim, son of touring car legend Kurt. The Danish driver got past the Porsche to take the lead, but suffered a second stroke of bad luck at the Nürburgring after being deprived of Saturday’s win when his Audi developed a technical defect on Lap 14 and had to be parked up. This triggered yet another safety car deployment, and Bachler regained the lead.

The Porsche team managed by Christian Schütz then made a tactical error at the changeover of drivers during the safety car period, calling Bachler into the pits one lap after the main field. As a result, Bachler’s team-mate Ragginger found himself back down in seventh place. Stoll took over the Audi in P1 ahead of fellow Audi driver pair Andreas Weishaupt (42, GER) and Daniel Dobitsch. Stoll then drove to a fairly comfortable victory while Dobitsch was clawing his way up into second place. Ragginger too went on an impressive charge, progressing to third place. For Basseng and Stoll, this second ADAC GT Masters victory was the end of a long lean period for both of them in the Super Sports Car League: Stoll last won in 2011 at the Lausitzring, while this was Basseng’s first win since 2008.

Basseng: “Especially at the start, you could see that I’ve experienced a wide range of situations here at the Nürburgring. I managed to ward off all the attacks and seize the initiative. This is now something like the 30th time I’ve stood on the top step of the podium here at the Nürburgring, but this victory was really something special.”

“We’ve had a long hard journey over the past two years, and at last it seems we’re on the up,” said a delighted Stoll. “I hope we can now maintain this level, but it’s not going to be easy. Our Audi is running extremely well at the moment. We’ve been working towards that for a long time.”

Dominik Baumann (22, AUT) and Jens Klingmann (25, GER) in a BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert Z4 GT3 finished the race in fourth place ahead of Hari Proczyk (39, AUT) and Bernd Schneider (51, CH) in the HP Racing Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. Weishaupt shared sixth place with partner Christer Jöns (28, GER), achieving not only his best result so far in the ADAC GT Masters but also victory in the Gentlemen class. Luca Stolz (19, GER) and Vincent Abril (20, MCO) in the faster of the two Bentley Continentals fielded by Bentley Team HTP took seventh ahead of the second-placed pairing in the Gentlemen class, Marc Gassner (24, GER) and Florian Strauss (30, GER) in their MRS GT-Racing Nissan GT-R. The second Bentley Team HTP entry driven by Clemens Schmid (24, AUT) and Fabian Hamprecht (20, AUT) took ninth.

For the second race in succession, championship leaders Ludwig and Asch had to attack the field from the rear after their Mercedes-Benz was excluded from qualifying for being underweight. Despite a drive-through penalty for overtaking under yellow flags, the Zakspeed duo still managed to salvage one point for a tenth-place finish. Closest pursuer Bachler thus took ten points out of their championship lead ahead of the sixth of the eight race weekends which will be hosted by the Sachsenring (28th - 30th August).

In the Gentlemen standings, Remo Lips (32, CH, RWT Racing Team) retained the top spot. Together with Sven Barth (34, GER), the Swiss amateur finished third in the Gentlemen class. His closest pursuers in the title chase, the MRS GT-Racing Nissan pairing of Dominic Jöst (36, GER) and Florian Scholze (42, GER), missed out on the podium in both of the races at the Nürburgring and were subsequently placed fourth ahead of Saturday’s winner Alexander Mattschull (43, GER) in the CarCollection Motorsport Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG as a result of a penalty for a speeding in the pit lane.