Tales from the Hockenheim paddock

• Marvin Kirchhöfer celebrates title win after perfect weekend
• Champion Kirchhöfer records the only hat-trick of the season
• 20,700 spectators watch enthralling finale under sunny skies
• Swiss TV channel at Hockenheim to report on Jeffrey Schmidt

The talented young drivers of the Formel ADAC gathered at Hockenheim for the eighth and final event of the 2012 season. Marvin Kirchhöfer had the best possible weekend, winning all three races and being crowned the fifth champion in the history of the junior series.
Favourites to the fore: The two main title rivals, Marvin Kirchhöfer and Gustav Malja, finished on the podium in all three races of the closing weekend at Hockenheim, but Kirchhöfer took the major honours with three wins. The talented twosome notched up 16 podium finishes each during the season, but with nine outright victories, Kirchhöfer had three times as many race wins as his Swedish opponent.

Late charge up table: Marvin Kirchhöfer made an impressive comeback over the final two ADAC Masters Weekends of the season at the Nürburgring and in Hockenheim: he posted five wins in the last six races to catch Swedish teenager Gustav Malja on the home stretch and secure the title in his Formel ADAC debut year.

Champion attracting outside interest: Marvin Kirchhöfer was showered with congratulations immediately after his title win in Hockenheim. “My phone was red hot and the battery gave up after an hour,” said the 18-year-old. “I got an incredible number of phone calls, text messages and e-mails, and I was facebooked no end of times – it’s great to see that so many fans are interested in Formel ADAC and in me. Many thanks to everyone for all their good wishes.” Kirchhöfer gave numerous interviews to reporters from TV and from the print media after wrapping up the title on Saturday. A large crowd gathered around the beaming winner together with the team championship winners from Lotus for the official group photo on Sunday. At the ADAC Masters Weekend awards ceremony later that evening, he was handed the championship trophy by ADAC 'Wagenreferent' Jürgen Fabry.

TV channel shadows Schmidt: Hockenheim is the next-best thing to a home race for Swiss youngster Jeffrey Schmidt – the Basel-based Lotus driver had a relatively short 200km journey to the closing race weekend of the Formel ADAC season. Schmidt’s local TV channel, Telebasel, followed him around the Hockenheim facilities during the weekend and will be broadcasting the resulting report on 1st October as part of the sports magazine programme ‘Heimspiel’ (meaning ‘Home match’).

Video review of the season: The trophy awards ceremony on Sunday traditionally brings the season to a formal end. One particular highlight of the occasion was the video review which was premiered as part of the evening’s programme of events. The film shows the best of the action from the 24 races and features individual profiles of the youngsters, in particular of course, newly crowned champion Marvin Kirchhöfer. Guests at the ceremony were also entertained by short videos documenting the 2012 ADAC GT Masters and ATS Formel-3-Cup as well as the MINI TROPHY competitions.