“It was a great race,” said final driver Fabian Schiller after crossing the finish line. “Our car ran fantastic and we had good pace. Third on Saturday, now the win – I’m totally happy,” said the 24-year-old.
However, the winners benefited from a mistake made by their brand colleagues from Mann-Filter Team Landgraf, who had been successful 24 hours earlier. Like on Saturday, Raffaelo Marciello started from pole position on Sunday with Maro Engel in the team’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo. Despite an additional weight of 20 kilograms in the car, he was able to defend the lead for the entire first half of the race up to the mandatory pit stop.
Marciello took over the car. In an effort not to fall short of the prescribed minimum pit time of 65 seconds, he lifted the gas pedal twice on the way to the pit exit, as can be proven by the data recording. However, this is forbidden and the race organizers promptly missed a so-called penalty lap on Marciello.
The winners of Sunday’s race are Fabian Schiller and Jules Gounon.
To do this, the Italian had to drive his racer off the ideal line after turn 1 of the Eifel circuit and at a speed of 60 km/h through a fixed 50 m long corridor. A new minor infringement rule introduced in 2021 in the ADAC GT Masters. Advantage of this approach: In contrast to the otherwise obligatory drive-through penalty in the pits, the sinner’s entire race is not destroyed.
In this case, however, it was enough for Fabian Schiller to take the lead. With a lead of 4.6 seconds, the man from Troisdorf drove home his team’s second win of the season, safely ahead of Marciello. A small consolation prize for Marciello, second place was enough for the Italian to extend the lead in the standings that he had secured the day before.
One man’s luck was another man’s bad luck. In third place, Elias Seppänen (18/FIN), who had swapped the cockpit of the #84 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo with Frank Bird, also received a penalty for being too short in the pits and ultimately had to settle for fourth place.
On the other hand, things went better for the combination of Maximilian Götz (36, GER) and Ezequiel Perez Companc (27, RA) in another Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo #90. The Madpanda Motorsport duo made up nine places and finished fifth – the best result for the Spanish team in the ADAC GT Masters to date.
ADAC GT Masters
Result Sunday race
2. Marciello/Engel (Mercedes)
3. Storm/Müller (Porsche)
4. Seppanen/Bird (Mercedes)
5. Perez Companc/Goetz (Mercedes)
6. Wishofer/Lappalainen (Lamborghini)
7. Schramm/Marshal (Audi)
8. Perera/Rougier (Lamborghini)
9. Catsburg/Krohn (BMW)
10. Paul/Mapelli (Lamborghini)
Standing driver after 8 of 14 races
1. R. Marciello (109 points)
2. J. Gounon (93 points)
2. F. Schiller (93 points)
3. C. Engelhart (85 points)
3. A. Güven (85 points)
4. S. Müller (80 points)
4th J. Storm (80 points)
5. N. Krütten (78 points)
5. B. Green (78 points)
