Last round silverware haul for the Aston Martin runners in the ADAC GT4 Germany Series

Sunday, November 07, 2021

The final two races of the 2021 ADAC GT4 Germany Series form the Nurburgring came as something of a late windfall for the four Aston Martin Racing crews from both the Dorr Motorsport and PROsport Racing teams.

Having only had one AMR Vantage GT4 entered into the series for the full season for drivers Phil Dorr and Andreas Wirth (#69), they were joined at the midway point at the Sachsenring with the first of the PROsport cars for drivers Mike David Ortmann and Hugo Sasse (#18).

With each car having already proved their competitive worth within the series with either a pole position or podium finishing position, they were soon to be joined with a further car from each stable for Ben Dorr and Nico Hantke (#59) and Yannick Fubrich and Yevgen Sokolovskiy (#16) from the Dorr and Prosport teams respectively.

First time out in their Aston last time out at the Hockenheim Ring two weeks ago left the #59 with their first podium position of the season which they went on to compliment with an overall pole position for Saturday’s penultimate race.

With tyre temperature an issue for the late afternoon race, Ben Dorr would have the #18 PROsport car for company on the front row with brother Ben Dorr just behind in P6 and with the Ukrainian Sokolovskiy a ‘best yet’ P16 as he continues to learn the art of GT racing.

Maintaining his lead position, B Dorr put in a commanding stint up until the pit window as he gapped the chasing pack by up to two seconds as others lost time to him racing for position as Sasse and Phil Dorr pitted early into the window as Ben Dorr went around again.

That didn’t help matters for the #59 crew however, as a speedy David-Ortmann soon caught and passed the #59 for the race lead to turn a two second deficit into a two second lead of his own. Wirth and Hantke would then come under siege from the many Porsche Cayman GT4’s in the field and each would drop down in position by the end as the #18 car claimed its second win of their short ADAC GT4 Germany season whilst the #59 and #69 Dorr cars would finish P4 and P5 with the #16 PROsport car coming home P20 overall (P4 in their Trophy class).

With all the Aston’s sadly already out of any championship battle, the overnight fog and rain would leave the track in a very greasy condition come the late morning start and that would impact on many cars that started on wets as the track quickly dried out as the cars got racing.

Wirth’s #69 car was the highest placed Aston for this final race of the season in P4 with David-Ortmann just behind in P5 but with the #59 and #16 cars much further down in P16 and P18 respectively.

With the race clock starting as the Safety Car again led off the grid for two formation laps, it was a typical slippery entrance into the tight right hander of turn 1 for the pack and it quickly became evident just who had picked the wrong tyre but for the two lead Aston’s that wasn’t the case and both quickly pressed through to challenge the leader by the end of the first fifteen minutes.

The front of the #59 was by now showing signs of intense inter car contact as Hantke chased stablemate Fubrich around for P12 as the pit window finally opened. With the stops over, the #18 car of Hasse was a tight P3 with two Porsche’s ahead of him and with P Dorr behind in P5.

P2, then P1 but back down again to P2 went the #18 PROsport car as Hasse battled for the overall lead and their second race win of the weekend and it wasn’t much more than half a lap later that Sasse made amends for his error at the Hockenheim Ring to take the race lead and then gap the two squabbling Porsche’s behind.

Whilst there wasn’t much P Dorr could do aboard his #69 car, brother Ben to improve his position from P10 after the stop through to P6 at the chequered flag as he and Phil mirrored their results of race 1 but Fubrich brought their #16 car home to claim their first Trophy Class podium finish in P16 overall and P2 in class.

The season therefore ended with Phil Dorr and Andreas Wirth securing their P3 place overall, but Dorr did drop to P4 overall in the Junior Class and four placed above the #59 crew of Ben Dorr and Nico Hantke. Dorr Motorsport also finished P3 in the team’s table.