ISR Audi Dominates Nurburgring Race 2

Team ISR took a commanding lights-to-flag victory in Sunday’s second ADAC GT Masters race at the Nurburgring, as Frank Stippler and Filip Salaquarda scored their first win of 2018.

Stippler consolidated his pole position by keeping the No. 33 Audi R8 LMS GT3 through the first-corner squeeze and continued to lead into the mandatory driver swaps.

Salaquarda, who retired from Saturday’s race on the opening lap after an incident, then took over around halfway through the 60-minute contest.

The Czech driver inherited a rough two-second advantage over the No. 24 BWT Muecke Motorsport Audi of Christopher Haase and Mike David Ortmann, but went on to extend that by nine seconds during his stint.

Salaquarda crossed the line 11.499 seconds clear of Markus Pommer, who overtook Ortmann with a well-timed lunge at the final right-hander on the penultimate lap.

Pommer’s No. 47 Mann-Filter Team HTP Motorsport Mercedes AMG GT3 was started by Maximilian Goetz, who ran fourth before the driver swaps.

In fourth at the end was the No. 25 BWT Muecke Audi driven by Ricardo Feller and Christopher Mies, while Robert Renauer and Mathieu Jaminet completed the top five in the No. 99 Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Adrien de Leener, who retired from race one, placed the No. 18 KUS Team75 Bernhard Porsche sixth, while Jake Dennis held off a charging Timo Bernhard in the sister Team75 car to take seventh for the Land Motorsport Audi squad.

Meanwhile, there was drama for Callaway Competition which saw its championship lead almost erased by a double retirement weekend.

Daniel Keilwitz and Marvin Kirchhoefer arrived at the Nurburgring with a 24-point cushion over Jaminet and Renauer, but two podiums for Goetz and Pommer mean the HTP duo now sits just one point behind the Corvette pair. 

After accident damage followed by a penalty ruled the No. 1 Corvette C7.R GT3 out of Saturday’s race, an apparent mechanical issue resulted in an early end to its Sunday charge.

Keilwitz had made a good start, surging from tenth on the grid to third in the opening exchanges, before returning the car to its garage just before the pit window.

Race 2 ran uninterrupted from the safety car after Race 1 was disrupted by three separate interventions.

That came despite a first-lap tangle in the mid-pack which saw Dries Vanthoor spin and lose 15 laps in the No. 12 EFP by TECE Audi.