For the first time in the 18-year history of the ADAC GT Masters, the championship will utilise a new racing format – Walkenhorst Motorsport will be well prepared with two Aston Martin cars.
The ADAC GT Masters will contest the third race weekend of this year’s season at the Nürburgring as part of the popular Truck GP – last year, more than 100,000 spectators flocked to the Eifel. This will be a special weekend for the traditional GT3 racing series, as an 80-minute ‘Endurance’ race and a 40-minute ‘Sprint’ race will be contested for the first time.
“The new race format is completely new for all participants! We hope that our experience from the endurance races will give us an advantage over the competition when it comes to changing tyres and refuelling – we are already looking forward to the new challenge,” says Jörg Breuer, Managing Director Walkenhorst Motorsport.
On Saturday, the ADAC GT Masters will contest an 80-minute endurance race, while the 40-minute sprint race will be held on Sunday. There are two mandatory pit stops in the Endurance race, during which the driver must be changed. During one pit stop, the tyres must also be changed and the car refuelled. Sunday’s race is a “sprint” race over a distance of 40 minutes with a pit stop to change drivers between minutes 15 and 25.
As usual, Walkenhorst Motorsport will field two Aston Martin Vantage GT3s. Denis Bulatov and Mike David Ortmann want to take their momentum from Zandvoort with them – where they achieved their first podium result of the 2024 season. The two GT4 newcomers currently occupy seventh place in the overall standings. US driver Chandler Hull and talented German youngster Nico Hantke will be in the sister car.
“In recent weeks, we have expressly proven at the ADAC GT Masters in Zandvoort and at the 24-hour race in Spa that our form curve is pointing strongly upwards. We now want to continue this trend with another strong performance at the Nürburgring! We also have more data with our Aston Martin from any other track, which also gives us a very positive outlook for the upcoming weekend,” adds Managing Director Niclas Königbauer.
Saturday’s ADAC GT Masters race will start at 15:00, while the lights will go green at 15:10 on Sunday. As usual, both races will be broadcast live on Sport1 free-to-air TV. In addition, both races will also be broadcast on the official ADAC live stream on YouTube.