Super sports car season starts: ADAC GT Masters in Oschersleben

• 2014 ADAC GT Masters with 26 super sports cars from eight different manufacturers
• Super Sports Car League has strongest field to date
• All races live and in full on kabel eins

The ADAC GT Masters has a lot to offer in the 2014 season: The Super Sports Car League will commence its eighth season on the weekend of April 25th to 27th in the etropolis Motorsport Arena Oschersleben with 26 supercars from eight different brands and the highest-calibre field ever. Three drivers who have had Formula 1 experience, six former and incumbent ADAC GT Masters champions, plus ex-DTM drivers and 24 hour-race winners in cars manufactured by Audi, BMW, Corvette, Camaro, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, McLaren and Porsch – the ADAC GT Masters (live on kabel eins, Saturday and Sunday, beginning at 11:45 am) has attracted Europe’s best GT drivers this year.

Key facts, etropolis Motorsport Arena Oschersleben, Race 1 and 2

Track length: 3.696 metres
Layout: 11 turns, racing in clockwise direction
Last year’s winners, Race 1: Christoffer Mies/René Rast (Audi R8 LMS ultra)
Last year’s winners, Race 2: Diego Alessi/Daniel Keilwitz (Corvette Z06.R GT3)
ADAC GT Masters from Oschersleben on TV: See attachment for details of TV programming

Title defender Keilwitz lines up with sportscar star Oliver Gavin

The start of the season at the track near Magdeburg will see champion Daniel Keilwitz (24, Villingen / Callaway Competition) fire the opening shots in Mission Title Defence. The Corvette driver will line up with sports car ace Oliver Gavin (41 Great Britain) for the first race weekend of the season. Keilwitz intends to be the first ADAC GT Masters champion to successfully mount a defence of the title and is confident after securing good results in pretesting: “We got our eye on the ball during testing. I think we’ve a good chance of being up there with the front-runners this year.” Diego Alessi (42, Italy), last year’s championship winner along with Keilwitz, will race in another Corvette together with new junior Patrick Assenheimer (21, Heilbronn).

After a year’s break, Heinz-Harald Frentzen (46, Germany / HTP Motorsport) is back in the ADAC GT Masters, now driving a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG together with ex-Formel ADAC driver Luca Stolz (18, Germany). Tomas Enge (37, Czech Republic / Reiter Engineering) and Markus Winkelhock (33, Germany / Prosperia C Abt Racing) have likewise had Formula 1 experience. Enge shares the mighty Chevrolet Camaro with Albert von Thurn und Taxis (30, Germany), Winkelhock will compete in the Audi R8 with Stefan Wackerbauer (18, Germany), who is moving up from single-seater racing. Frentzen can also count on the support of two speedy team-mates in his maiden season in the 550-horsepower gullwing Mercedes. 2012 ADAC GT Masters champion Maximilian Götz (28, Germany) and Maximilian Buhk (21, Germany) will be having their second stab at the title together. “It won’t be easy this year,” said Buhk, who was honoured as ADAC Junior Racer of the Year in 2013. “We’ve ready seen some very fast times in pre-testing, but it’s very difficult to weigh up the field as a whole.”

Formidable pairings in brace of Mercedes-Benz gullwings

Some formidable drivers will take their places in their cockpits of the SLS AMGs of newcomers ROWE RACING and BKK MOBIL OIL Zakspeed. Former DTM driver Maro Engel (28, Germany) and Jan Seyffarth (28, Germany) take the wheel for ROWE RACING, and Luca Ludwig (25, Germany) and Alon Day (22, Israel) share the drive for Zakspeed. The situation at Zakspeed is also quite special in that Luca Ludwig’s father, touring car legend Klaus, is the team’s technical advisor.

The Porsche team have achieved the status of favourites after former champion Sebastian Asch (27, Germany / Farnbacher Racing), who lines up with Philip Frommenwiler (24, Switzerland), set the fastest lap time in the 911 during the pre-season test sessions. The Porsche pairings of ADAC GT Masters runner-up Robert Renauer (28, Germany, TONINO Team Herberth) and Norbert Siedler (31, Austria) and Christian Engelhart (27, Germany / GW IT Racing - Schütz Motorsport), who will be racing with newcomer Jaap van Lagen (37, Netherlands) must also to be taken very seriously.

Two women in line-up: Rahel Frey in the Audi, Claudia Hürtgen in BMW

There are once again two speedy ladies in the Super Sports Car League: Rahel Frey (28, Switzerland) lines up in the Audi R8, whilst Claudia Hürtgen (42, Germany) starts the race with a home advantage in the BMW Z4 GT3 prepared by Oschersleben-based PIXUM Team Schubert.

The Gentlemen category in which two former champions face a number of newcomers also promises to be very thrilling. Corvette driver Toni Seiler (56, Switzerland / Callaway Competition) who is the most senior driver in the series at Oschersleben and will be contesting his 100th race is in the hunt for his third title in the Gentlemen rating. After a year’s break, 2011 Gentlemen champion Marc A. Hayek (43, Switzerland / Blancpain Racing), is also back in a Lamborghini Gallardo, lining up with 2012 ADAC GT Masters champion Peter Kox (50, Netherlands).

Tickets, including paddock access, start at €20.00

Fans who prefer to experience the ADAC GT Masters live at the track can obtain tickets in advance starting at 20 euros (includes access to the paddock). Tickets are available online at www.adac.de/motorsport from all ADAC branch offices, online at www.eventim.de or from one of the more than 20,000 Eventim outlets in Europe.