Red Bull Ring not worth a trip for Young Driver AMR

The long journey to the ADAC GT Masters round at the Red Bull Ring in Austria wasn’t worth a trip for Young Driver AMR. Ferdinand and Johannes Stuck and Kristian Poulsen/Christoffer Nygaard experienced two very difficult races with the Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 on the former Formula 1 track in Styria.

The practise and qualifying session showed already that the two races at the Red Bull Ring would be though for the pair of Young Driver AMR-Aston Martins. All four drivers qualified in the midfield of the grid. „We have problem to make the tires work at this track and we can’t really get behind this“, explained Young Driver AMR team principal Hardy Fischer.

Despite the tire problems, the Stuck brothers as well as the Danish Duo Poulsen/Nygaard had a good, but unrewarded run in the first race. The Stucks finished 14th at their home track after starting 19th, the two Danes saw the chequered flag in 18th position and secured a third place finish for Poulsen in the amateur championship.

The second race on Sunday was not a breakthrough. Johannes Stuck had to retire his Aston Martin in the fourth lap when he made contact with a Porsche after a ABS-malfunction, Kristian Poulsen had to retire five laps before the finish with an engine problem.

“A very disappointing weekend,” Hardy Fischer said. “After we didn’t made the tires work in the practise and qualifying session, we didn’t had the best grid positions and in this very competitive championship, it’s very difficult if you start from the midfield. The weekend in Austria certainly wasn’t one of our best weekends this season, but now we look forward and prepare the cars for the next round at the Lausitzring, where we certainly will attack again.”

Driver quotes after the race:

Johannes Stuck: “I overtook a BMW and stepped on the brake, but the car didn’t braked as expected and unfortunately I made contact with a Porsche. I’m very sorry for the Porsche driver, but the data of the car showed that I had some ABS problems. Even without this problem, it would not have been possible to score a position better then in the midfield today.“

Christoffer Nygaard: “After the difficulties with the tires, we changed the set-up for the second race, but this was entirely the wrong way and didn’t worked at all. We struggled from the first lap on. Now we have to stay focused and work very hard for the next race at the Lausitzring next week."

Image: GT Masters