Porsches have field day at Red Bull Ring

• Engelhart/Tandy lead four-Porsche parade to victory in Austria
• Swen Dolenc celebrates yet another victory in the amateur standings
• Best result of season for Heinz-Harald Frentzen

Superior traction, good top speed and drivers with nerves of steel: in the ninth race of the ADAC GT Masters season at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, four Porsche 911s carved up the race spoils among themselves. In a tightly contested battle that lasted the whole of the second stint, the winners of the previous year’s race at the same venue, Christian Engelhart (25, Kösching) and Nicky Tandy (27, GB / Team Geyer & Weinig – Schütz Motorsport) prevailed over Robert Renauer (27, Jedenhofen) and Nicolas Armindo (30, France / FROGREEN CO2 neutral) by a margin of just 0.528 seconds. “It was a tough and nerve-wracking race for 30 minutes,” said a breathless Tandy after his second win of the season. ADAC Sports Foundation protégé Mario Farnbacher (20, Ansbach) and Niclas Kentenich (24, Neuss / Farnbacher Racing ESET) completed the podium party.

Key facts, Red Bull Ring, Austria

Length of track: 4,326 metres
Weather: 16°C, overcast
Pole position Race 1: Mario Farnbacher (Farnbacher ESET Racing-Porsche 911), 01:30.867 mins
Winner Race 1: Christian Engelhart / Nick Tandy (Team Geyer & Weinig / Schütz Motorsport-Porsche 911)
Fastest race lap: Martin Ragginger (FACH AUTO TECH-Porsche 911), 01:30.981

Mario Farnbacher impresses in first half of race

The first half of the race was dominated by Mario Farnbacher. Starting from pole position, the ADAC Sports Foundation protégé showed nerves of steel when he was forced to follow the safety car twice within the first eight laps after a collision in midfield and a spin by a McLaren. Farnbacher retained the lead after both restarts, staying ahead of fellow Porsche drivers Robert Renauer and Christian Engelhart until the halfway stage.

It was the compulsory pit stop window that ultimately decided the outcome of the race. The switch of drivers between Farnbacher and team-mate Kentenich was not ideal, and the Porsche duo lost three seconds in the pits, which dropped them down to third place. Meanwhile, Christian Engelhart and Nick Tandy executed a perfect changeover to move up two places, with Tandy slotting back onto track as race leader ahead of Nicolas Armindo.

The two Porsche specialists, Tandy and Armindo, harried each other for the whole of the second stint, with rarely more than half a second separating them. Englishman Tandy held out at the front right through to the end of the race to secure the win. “It was extremely nerve-wracking, because I knew that I couldn’t afford to make the slightest error with such a strong opponent as Nicolas Armindo,” said Tandy afterwards. “We won this race with great teamwork and with a mega pit stop,” said a jubilant Engelhart. Armindo was satisfied with second place nonetheless. “On the long straights, I didn’t have as much slipstream as I really needed for a successful attack, and there was no way I was going to crowbar my way past.”

Following their botched pit stop, Farnbacher and Kentenich were relieved to take third place, but even this was hard won. Martin Ragginger (24, Austria / FACH AUTO TECH), contesting his home race, put Kentenich under sustained pressure in the second stint but had to settle for fourth, his best result of the season so far.

Fourth place also helped co-driver Swen Dolenc (44, Maulbronn) to claim yet another victory in the amateur stakes.

Fifth place for Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Andreas Wirth

Ex-Formula 1 and DTM driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen (45, Neuss), who shares a Corvette with Andreas Wirth (27, Heidelberg / Callaway Competition), will certainly be pleased with his best result of 2012. Some way behind the leading Porsche quartet, Frentzen overtook the Corvette driven by Diego Alessi (40, Italy) and Daniel Keilwitz (23, Villingen) on the final lap to take the chequered flag in fifth position. Sixth place was still good enough to take Alessi/Keilwitz back to the top of the standings, as previous championship leaders Dino Lunardi (33, France) and Maxime Martin (26, Belgium / ALPINA) in their BMW ALPINA B6 GT3 finished 13th outside the points.

Austrians Baumann and Proczyk come seventh

The fastest of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMGs was driven by the Austrian partnership of Dominik Baumann (20) from Rum in Tirol and local favourite Hari Proczyk (36 / Heico Motorsport) from Sankt Margarethen, who crossed the line in seventh position. One place behind the two Austrians were Sascha Bert (36, Ober-Ramstadt) and Christopher Brück (27, Cologne / Gemballa Racing), collecting the first championship points of the 2012 season for the McLaren MP4-12C. Sebastian Asch (26, Ammerbuch) / Maximilian Götz (26 Uffenheim / kfzteile24 MS RACING Team) in their Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and Jesse Krohn (21, Finland) / Nico Verdonck (26, Belgium / Lambda Performance) in their Ford GT completed the Top Ten.

Engelhardt and Poulsen join Dolenc on amateur podium

While fourth-placed Swen Dolenc was posting a convincing win over the other amateur drivers to consolidate his championship lead, Porsche driver Georg Engelhardt (50, Langensendelbach / Team GT3 Hull) made it a perfect day for Porsche with the runner-up spot on the amateur podium. Dolenc’s closest pursuer in the amateur championship, Kristian Poulsen (36, Denmark, Young Driver AMR) in the Aston Martin V12 Vantage, came third.

Austrian driver Eng to start second race from pole position

The second race of the ADAC GT Masters on Sunday also promises to be an exciting affair. Austrian driver Philipp Eng (21) from Salzburg will start from pole position in his McLaren MP4-12C, followed by runner-up in Race 1 Nicolas Armindo in a Porsche and current championship leader Daniel Keilwitz in a Corvette.