ADAC GT Masters: Asch & Ludwig rushing to the title

Luca Ludwig and Sebastian Asch are the winners of the second race of the ADAC GT Masters at Lausitzring. This is the second win in the season for the Team Zakspeed’s Mercedes SLS AMG #21, so they have now strenghened their lead in the overall standings after the first half of the season.

Daniel Keilwitz and Andreas Wirth (Callaway Competiton) finished second with a gap of 2.996 seconds, while the last place on the podium was won by the GW IT Racing Team Schutz Motorsport pair Klaus Bachler and Martin Ragginger, 6.804 seconds behind the winners.

Daniel Keilwitz started well in his Corvette Z06 R GT3 and moved up to the top of the grid, followed by pole positioned Luca Ludwig, while Klaus Bachler moved up to third. The biggest loser in the opening lap was Nicki Thiim who dropped from fifth to second.

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It was a really bad weekend for the reigning champion Kelvin van der Linde as he was the first who was made to visit the box. C.Abt Racing’s car #1 had to retire on Saturday, while on Sunday its Audi was smoking after Marc Basseng ran in it from behind and immediately dropped down in the standings.

In the meantime, HP Racings’s Andreas Simonsen got a five seconds penalty because of the incorrect starting position, but soon he had to retire after the problems with front right wheel, just as Patrick Assenheimer in the second Callaway Competition’s Corvette.

The leading trio remained unchanged until the pit window was opened. Keilwitz was 8.5 seconds ahead of Bachler and Klingmann, but after drivers change there were also changes in the classification. Sebastian Asch took the lead in the Team Zakspeed’s Mercedes #21, followed by Andreas Wirth in the Callaway Competition’s #66 and Schutz Motorsport’s Porsche #36 with Martin Ragginger in the driving seat.

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With 20 minutes to go, in the fourth spot was Dominik Baumann and fifth was Daniel Dobitsch in the kfzteile24’s Audi R8 LMS Ultra, as they progressed after Jordan Lee Pepper in the C.Abt Racing’s Audi #2 had to serve stop and go penalty, but both of them were more than 12 seconds behind the leading car.

While Asch and Wirth were safe in their positions, Martin Ragginger and Dominik Baumann were in huge battle for third in the last minutes of the race, but the Porsche driver somehow managed to be faster than his rival in the BMW Z4 GT3.

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