HTP Mercedes Wins Race 2 at Most

Maximilian Goetz and Markus Pommer gave Mercedes its first victory of this year’s ADAC GT Masters with a commanding run at Autodrom Most.

The pair, driving the No. 48 HTP Motorsport Mercedes AMG-GT3, won the weekend’s second 60-minute contest with a clinical drive from pole position.

Daniel Keilwitz and Marvin Kirchhoefer were second in the Callaway Competition Corvette C7 GT3-R, repeating their result from Race 1 on Saturday.

At the start, Goetz rode out an early safety car period after the Zakspeed Mercedes of Sebastian Asch and Luca Stolz crashed on the opening lap.

Asch was pegged into a spin by Christopher Mies in the No. 29 Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT3, before being hit by the EFP-TECE Audi driven by Dries Vanthoor.

With the restart at his disposal, Goetz then pulled out a gap of three seconds over Keilwitz, while Maximilian Buhk ran third in the sister HTP entry.

That order maintained itself through the mid-race driver swaps, despite the Mercedes pair circulating for an extra lap in the hope of establishing a one-two.

However, Buhk’s car, driven in the second half by Indy Dontje, was called back into the pits to serve a penalty for exceeding the minimum stop time.

That elevated the Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3-R of Mathieu Jaminet and Robert Renauer into the final podium position.

A second consecutive top-three finish means the Herberth squad leads the overall championship after four races.

At the front, Kirchhoefer set about bridging the gap to Pommer but the Mercedes driver always had at least two seconds of daylight between himself and the Corvette.

Pommer crossed the line 1.899 seconds ahead of Kirchhoefer, sealing his and Goetz’s first win as a pairing in ADAC GT Masters.

Dontje exited the pits in 17th after serving his penalty and gained one position before the checkered flag.

Fourth was the HB Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 driven by Dominik Schwager and Luca Ludwig, while the ISR Racing Audi of Frank Stippler and local favorite Filip Salaquarda rounded out the top five.

Stippler started next to Buhk on the second row but was overtaken into the first corner by both Jaminet and Ludwig who started from rows three and four respectively.

Junior class honors went to Alessio Picariello, who finished sixth overall with Christopher Mies in the No. 10 Land Motorsport Audi.

Seventh was the best-placed BWT Muecke Motorsport Audi of Ricardo Feller and Christopher Haase, ahead of the sister Land Audi piloted by Sheldon and Kelvin van der Linde.

Race one winners Jeffrey Schmidt and Stefan Muecke were 9th in their BWT Mucke R8, while Christopher Zoechling picked up the final point on offer in the MRS GT-Racing BMW M6 GT3.

Zoechling was overtaken by Schmidt on the penultimate lap, with the Audi driver executing a fine braking maneuver into the Turn 13 right-hander.

Next up for the GT Masters series is a pair of races at the Red Bull Ring in early June.

RESULT: Race 2