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In a chaotic ADAC GT Masters race on Sunday at the Sachsenring, the Porsche customer team Precote Herberth Motorsport took over the lead of the drivers’ classification. Porsche Young Professional Mathieu Jaminet and Robert Renauer crossed the finish line in their ca. 500 hp Porsche 911 GT3 R in fourth place and now travel to the final race weekend at Hockenheim as the points’ leaders. In the second-best customer sport racer, the two Porsche works drivers Timo Bernhard and Kévin Estre from the KÜS Team75 Bernhard squad came fifth. Many collisions, twelve retirements and about a half-hour interruption threw the field into disarray.

In qualifying, Jaminet from France had posted the fourth best time. The Porsche-supported driver, however, had to take up the race from the ninth grid spot when the team was relegated five positions down the starting grid after a collision on Saturday. When the lights went out, Jaminet immediately launched a pursuit and made up five positions in the first lap before the race was stopped for 30 minutes due to several collisions. After 14 laps, the Porsche Young Professional handed the 911 GT3 R off to his teammate Renauer while running in fourth place. Because of a safety car phase during the driver change, the 911 racer fell back to position seven, however the German managed to work his way up the field by three places. This result puts the international duo first in the drivers’ classification in the lead-up to the season finale at the Hockenheimring. “The race was incredibly chaotic. Luckily I managed to avoid the collisions after the start and gain several places. We lost three places during the pit stop, but Robert did a great job and worked his way back up again. We’ll do everything we can to secure the overall win at Hockenheim,” said Jaminet.

Bernhard from Germany and Frenchman Estre gave a courageous performance at Sunday’s race. Taking up the one-hour race from P7, start driver Estre made up one position before handing the 911 GT3 R to his teammate. Bernhard took the wheel after 13 laps, but fell back to position eight due to a safety car phase that happened simultaneously. The two-time world endurance champion gradually improved his position and was running fifth when the flag came out. “Our start was good, but there were a lot of collisions in front of me. I managed to stay out of trouble, and after the first restart I was in sixth. We experienced a bit of bad luck with the strategy, as the safety car was out on the track during the pit-stop window – otherwise we could have done better,” explained Estre.

For IronForce by Ring Police, the Sunday race did not go to plan. The newcomer team took up round twelve from 20th on the grid. In the hectic initial phase, start driver Lucas Luhr from Germany initially managed to reach twelfth place before the former Porsche works driver handed the 911 GT3 R over to Jan-Erik Slooten after 13 laps. The German, however, had to complete a drive-through penalty for not observing the obligatory pit stop duration and crossed the finish line in position 22. “It was pretty turbulent at the start. We were a little too quick during the driver change and the penalty cost us a lot of time. That’s particularly annoying, because we’d made such progress up to that point,” said Slooten.

Lady Luck was not on the side of the second customer sport racer fielded by KÜS Team75 Bernhard on Sunday. After Klaus Bachler (Austria) posted pole position in qualifying, the former Porsche Junior managed to defend his spot after two restarts and eke out an advantage of over two seconds. While in the lead, Bachler came into the pits after 16 laps for the mandatory driver change. His teammate Adrien de Leener (Belgium) had to park the 911 GT3 R after 24 rounds due to an accident. “I was able to control the pace well at the head of the field. At the restart after the fourth safety car phase there was a collision, which brought an end to our race. After setting pole position, it’s such a pity to end the weekend like this,” explained Bachler.

The season finale of the ADAC GT Masters will be contested on the Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg from 21 to 23 September. The winner of the “super sports car league” has been crowned at the tradition-steeped 4.574-kilometre racetrack since 2011. In addition to Porsche, Audi, BMW, Corvette, Ferrari, Honda, Lamborghini and Mercedes-AMG also contest the international race series.

Sachsenring, result race 12 of 14
1. Erhart/Kaffer (D/D), Audi R8 LMS
2. van der Linde/van der Linde (ZA/ZA), Audi R8 LMS
3. Schmidt/Mücke (CH/D), Audi R8 LMS
4. Jaminet/Renauer (F/D), Porsche 911 GT3 R
5. Bernhard/Estre (D/F), Porsche 911 GT3 R
22. Luhr/Slooten (D/D), Porsche 911 GT3 R

DNF
Bachler/de Leener (A/B), Porsche 911 GT3 R