Hürtgen first female driver to secure pole in ADAC GT Masters

• Claudia Hürtgen takes top spot in BMW Z4
• First woman to secure pole for an ADAC GT Masters race
• Local driver Philip Geipel also on front row in an Audi

Hohenstein-Ernstthal. Premiere in the ADAC GT Masters. A woman has left all the men trailing in her wake for the first time in qualifying. Claudia Hürtgen (43, DEU/BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert) secured her maiden ADAC GT Masters pole with the BMW Z4 in difficult drying track conditions at the Sachsenring and will start from the top spot on the grid on Saturday at 1:00 CET, partnered by team-mate Uwe Alzen (47, DEU). Local driver Philip Geipel (28, DEU) prevented a front-row lock-out for BMW by securing the second position on the grid in his Audi R8. Geipel thus denied BMW driver Dominik Baumann (22, AUT/BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert) a place on the front row. Hürtgen: "I tried both wets and slicks. The slicks were best. I've already won a number of races in the ADAC GT Masters but have never started on pole before. It felt good to take first place on the grid on this challenging Sachsenring track in these conditions." SPORT1 will broadcast the first of two ADAC GT Masters races live from the Sachsenring at 1:00 CET.

Qualifying thriller on drying track

On a drying track and as lap times fell with every minute that passed, qualifying turned into a real thriller in which the lead changed hands 15 times and lap times tumbled by ten seconds. Hürtgen ultimately had the best strategy, edging into first place on the grid with a lead of 0.181 seconds on Geipel. "I'm particularly pleased for Schubert Motorsport, because the team completely rebuilt our BMW in less than ten days after the accident at the Nürburgring. This is the best gift that I could give the team," said Claudia Hürtgen.

Baumann in the BMW will share the second row with Clemens Schmid (25, AUT/Bentley Team HTP) in the Bentley Continental GT3. The Audi R8 of Florian Stoll (34, DEU/kfzteile24 MS Racing) and Stefan Wackerbauer (19, DEU/C.Abt Racing) will start the race from the third row. Championship leaders Luca Ludwig (26, DEU)/Sebastian Asch (29, DEU/Team Zakspeed) in the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG will line up in tenth position, while title contender Klaus Bachler (24, AUT) in the Porsche 911 will be 14th on the grid along with Martin Ragginger (27, AUT/both GW IT Racing Team Schütz Motorsport).

Qualifying for Sunday's race will take place on Sunday morning at 8:00 CET.