ADAC GT Masters champion Keilwitz will defend title, aided by Wirth and Gavin

• Daniel Keilwitz and Andreas Wirth – new team-mates at Callaway Competition
• Sports car ace Oliver Gavin will replace Wirth for three races
• Callaway Competition confirms drivers for their four Corvettes

ADAC GT Masters champion Daniel Keilwitz (24, Germany) is to line up with the support of two drivers this season as he mounts his title defence. Keilwitz will share the Corvette Z06 prepared by Callaway Competition with Andreas Wirth (29, Germany) in the Super Sports Car League. Oliver Gavin (41 GB) will stand in for the three events that Wirth must miss due to work commitments.

Four-time ADAC GT Masters race winner Wirth will commence his third season in a row at Callaway. Gavin is new to the Corvette team but knows the US sports car like no other from his years as a works driver for Corvette Racing with many successes in the 24H of Le Mans/France and in the American Le Mans Series at the wheel of the American sports car. Diego Alessi (42, I) and Keilwitz, who carried off the 2013 ADAC GT Masters title will be competing this year in different Corvettes prepared by the team led by Ernst Wöhr and Giovanni Ciccone. Alessi will line up with new signing Patrick Assenheimer (21, Germany).

“We are certain that Daniel Keilwitz has a good chance of successfully defending the title with the support of Andreas Wirth and Oliver Gavin,” said Giovanni Ciccone, team principal at Callaway. “Unfortunately, Andreas Wirth is unable to take part in all of the races scheduled for the first half of the season due to work commitments. We have found a good solution for the races in which Andreas cannot be in the line-up with Oliver Gavin standing in for him at those three events. We believe that we have a good chance of successfully defending the title by fielding this combination.”

Gavin will line up on the grid for the season opener at the etropolis Motorsport Arena Oschersleben, at the Lausitzring and at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. Wirth takes over the cockpit alongside Keilwitz for the race at Zandvoort in the Netherlands and for all four events in the second half of the season.

“I’m very pleased with this arrangement whereby I mount my title defence with two different team-mates,” said Daniel Keilwitz. “I already know Andreas Wirth very well from the previous two years in the ADAC GT Masters, and Oliver Gavin is one of the world’s most successful and best GT motor racing drivers. Making the switch between two different team-mates will certainly not be easy, but I’m certain that we’ll be among the front-runners right from the start.”

In the two other Corvettes prepared by Callaway Competition, Toni Seiler (56 CH), the longest-serving driver in the ADAC GT Masters, will share a cockpit, alternating between Jeroen Bleekemolen (32, NL) and Andreas Simonsen (24, S), whilst Remo Lips (32, CH) and ADAC Sports Foundation protégé Lennart Marioneck (25, Germany) will partner each other as they did last year in the fourth Callaway Corvette.