Young Driver AMR scores top-five-result at Zandvoort

Young Driver AMR made another big step forward with the new Aston Martin V12 Vantage at the second round of the ADAC GT Masters. In the series first race at the former Dutch Formula 1 track, Ferdinand and Johannes Stuck finished sixth in the first race. In Sunday’s second race, Kristian Poulsen and Christoffer Nygaard bettered this result with a fifth place finish in the highly competitive 40 car strong grid of the ADAC GT Masters.

Johannes Stuck started from eleventh into the first race and was already in eight position after a decent first lap. He handed the Aston Martin in eight to his younger brother Ferdinand halfway through the race, who finally brought the V12-powered Aston Martin home in sixth place. Poulsen and Nygaard in the sister car had bad luck, when Poulsen made contact with a BMW ALPINA and had to retire with a broken front splitter.

For Sunday’s second heat, luck and bad luck changed in two Young Driver AMR-line up’s and the Stuck-brothers were unlucky. Johannes Stuck was on the way to a top-five result, when a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG forced Stuck to spin after a contact and sent him into the tire barrier. Stuck managed to bring the car back into the pits, but retired from the race. Poulsen and Nygaard were on the lucky side in Sunday´s race. Nygaard had a great start and was ninth by the end of lap one, after starting from position 15. The Dane continued his strong race and handed the V12 Vantage to Poulsen in sixth place. In the latter part of the race, Poulsen gained another position and finished fifth and also scored a second place finish in the amateur-championship.

"We head in the right direction with our new Aston Martin", says Young Driver AMR-manager Hardy Fischer. "A fifth place finish for Kristian and Christoffer with our new Aston Martin is a fine result. It’s a pity that the Stucks had bad luck in the second race, otherwise I’m sure we could have scored two good results today. With the current 'Balance of Performance', we are not yet in the position to fight for victories, but I hope that the BOP will be reviewed for the next round, especially the cars with a BMW badge need some adjustments, as they seam to have a more equal BOP then other cars."

Kristian Poulsen: "The race was o.k., and fifth is good, considering the fact I’m at Zandvoort for the first time. In general, I race to win and with the current BOP, that’s simply not possible. We just need a bit more power."

Christoffer Nygaard: "We can be happy with what we achieved this weekend. Our race-pace was good, but we need to work on our qualifying performance."

Ferdinand Stuck: "My start was good and I could gain some positions. But eventually we had bad luck when Kenneth Heyer took Johannes out, and sent him into the tire barrier. It was a race incident, things like this can happen, but it’s a real shame, because otherwise we could have scored a good amount of points today."

Johannes Stuck: "It was not a bad weekend for us and we clearly made good steps into the right direction. The two races we did on the Nordschleife clearly helped us to learn more about the car and get a better feeling for it. Ferdinand had a great first stint in Sunday’s race, but then we brought our pit stop forward, as we stuck behind some slower cars. The contact with Heyer was bad luck, I think he simply missed the braking point. As a result of this contact, I had a puncture and we decided to retire as there was no chance of to score any points."

Young Driver AMR