Stolz Victorious in Drama-Filled Sachsenring Race 2

Luca Stolz ended a one-year win drought for himself, Mercedes-AMG and Haupt Racing Team by coming out on top in a drama-filled Sachsenring Race 2 after a late penalty for Thierry Vermeulen.

The No. 4 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo took the checkered flag 0.769 seconds ahead of the No. 3 ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, while Vermeulen completed the podium in third.

The Dutchman’s No. 69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 started the race from pole position and dominated the opening 30 minutes, only to see his lead over Stolz smashed by the emergence of a mid-race safety car.

This was triggered by a multi-car incident involving Rene Rast, Jordan Pepper and Marco Wittmann that eliminated the latter two drivers from the race.

Rast hit the back of Pepper’s No. 63 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 going into Turn 1, with the South African then pushed into the No. 11 Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 driven by Wittmann and taking both out.

While Vermeulen maintained the lead of the race at the restart, he lost the lead less than five minutes later as a result of a penalty lap for a pitstop infringement, dropping him to third.

This allowed Stolz to take his first win since last year’s Sachsenring Saturday race, which was exactly a year ago. In the process, he also ended a similar win drought for both HRT and Mercedes-AMG, neither of which had taken a victory in the series since Stolz last stood on the top step.

Thomas Preining finished fourth after unsuccessfully pressuring Vermeulen’s Ferrari for third place in the final minutes.

The Austrian had made his way past the No. 130 Mercedes-AMG of Maro Engel at the restart, taking advantage of Engel’s unsuccessful attempt to challenge Van der Linde for third into Turn 1.

Jack Aitken followed up his Saturday win with sixth place in Race, 2 followed home by Mirko Bortolotti, Ayhancan Guven and Sheldon van der Linde.

Rene Rast completed the overall top ten ahead of Nicki Thiim, Clemens Schmid and Lucas Auer.

Kelvin van der Linde, meanwhile, took back the championship lead from Bortolotti thanks to his third-place finish and sits ahead of Bortolotti by seven points with four races remaining.

RESULTS: Race 2