ADAC GT Masters: Asch and Ludwig closer to title

Sebastian Asch and Luca Ludwig are one step closer to ADAC GT Masters championship title after winning first round at Zandvoort. Team Zakspeed pair clinched third victory of the season and now they are 54 points clear of their rivals Dominik Baumann and Jens Klingmann.

After five laps, standings on the top of the grid were the same as at the start. Martin Ragginger was 1.1s ahead of Tomas Enge, and 1.5s ahead of Sebastian Asch, while Rachel Frey and Jens Klingmann, who moved up four positions, were more than seven seconds behind.

After unusually quiet first 20 minutes of racing, safety car was deployed due to Diego Alessi accident. Driver of the Callaway Competition’s Corvette lost control and hit the wall damaging his car badly. After race was restarted, Enge had contact with Ragginger who slid off the track and dropped to the back of the grid, while Reiter Engineering Lamborghini became the leader in front of Asch and Florian Stoll who moved up to third.

After drivers change standings Luca Ludwig in Team Zakspeed’s Mercedes took the lead, Marc Basseng in kfzteile24 MS Racing’s Audi went second, while Tom Dilman in HTP Motorsport’s Bentley moved up to third. Jaap van Lagen, who changed Enge behind a wheel, dropped out of points zone.

Ludwig had a 6.8s advantage and a clear road to victory, but battle for second and third place was very interesting as Basseng, Dillman and Geipel were within two seconds. Basseng managed to keep the second place, while Philip Geipel finished third, leaving Dillman on fourth and Nicki Thiim on fifth place.