Reigning Champions Ortmann and Sasse lead the way in a rain drenched Nurburgring third round

Monday, August 07, 2023

The ADAC GT4 Germany Series was back in action at the weekend from what turned out to be a rain soaked Nurburgring circuit with five Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 crews again taking part – four from the locally based Prosport Racing team and another from the Doer Motorsport team.

The early pace was set by the #1 Prosport Racing AMR of Higo Sasse as he and Mike David Ortmann secured pole position for the start of Saturday’s opening hour long race with the #007 Doer car of Ben Dorr and Theo Nouet close behind in third.

Starting upon a wet track behind the Safety Car, Sasse maintained his lead as the thirty strong grid tip-toed around an obviously slippery circuit. Two early spinners into the tyre wall quickly brought out the Safety Car again, wiping out the 3.5 second lead that Sasse had already built up in that opening ten minutes before the race was red flagged for repairs.

Starting again behind the Safety Car, the race resumed as the #1, #007 and #19 cars lead and Aston Martin 1-2-3 in opening laps. With further spinners within the midst of the pack, the race at least continued with Dorr soon setting an early fastest lap prior to the pit window opening.

Times slowly increased as a dry line began to form on track, but the rain soon returned to blight the aspirations of some who elected for slicks at their pit stops leaving the two front running Astons (#1 and #007) to battle with two Mercedes AMR GT4’s for the podium prizes where they eventually finished second and third respectively by the end.

Those battles continued in Sunday’s equally wet race two as the #1 car this time started from the second row of the grid with the #007 next best again in P7.

More early spinners again brought out the Safety Car before the race was later released again as the rainfall intensified making for some atrocious track conditions from which Ortmann soon took charge again at the front on the restart.

This time Nouet could not do much with those ahead as he remained in sixth as the pit window opened where Sasse eventually emerged down in second, behind the #24 Porsche with the #007 holding onto sixth.

With twenty minutes remaining, the #1 car was relegated to third before Sasse passed both the #85 Mercedes and #24 Porsche with still ten minutes remaining – a position from which the reigning champions would not look back to end an incredible return to the series after some difficult races so far from both Oschersleben and Zandvoort.

Not having all their own way also saw the #48 Trophy class car of Yevgen Sokolovskiy and Damon Surzyshyn take a class win in race 1 whilst their teams debuting duo of Raphael Rennhofer and Leon Erger also impressive after their P4 start and P7 finish in race 1, backed up with a P13 start and P18 finish in race 2.