New game, new luck for GRT this coming weekend at the Sachsenring. The Austrian Lamborghini Team will be competing in two championships on the legendary circuit in the Eastern part of Germany from 8 to 10 September. For the second time this year, the DTM and the ADAC GT Masters will be racing together at an event and Grasser Racing will be involved with two Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2s. In the DTM, Clemens Schmid is out to make amends. The Austrian will drive the team's only car this time. The number 19 entry remains unoccupied at the Sachsenring event. In the ADAC GT Masters, Nürburgring winners Benjamin Hites and Marco Mapelli return from the summer break with big confidence.
After GRT’s first DTM victory by Maximilian Paul at the Nürburgring, the team recently presented themselves in good shape at the Lausitzring once again. However, team principal Gottfried Grasser's squad did not get the reward they deserved. Driving the #63 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2, Clemens Schmid was on course for a podium from the start but got robbed of the chance on a precious trophy in Sunday's race by a collision that was not his fault. At the Sachsenring, the GRT crew and the 33-year-old want to strike back.
The sixth stop in the 2023 DTM season marks the return of legendary racing series to the iconic German circuit for the first time since 2002. The 3.65 km long rollercoaster has only been part of the DTM calendar on three occasions since 1984. For GRT, however, it is an old acquaintance. In the ADAC GT Masters, the Lamborghini Squadra Corse supported racing team has competed at the Sachsenring several times. At the last appearance in 2021, the team missed out on the podium by the tiniest of margins with a tenths of a second. Clemens Schmid, on the other hand, made it onto the podium in 2015 by finishing second.
Benjamin Hites and Marco Mapelli also want to get up there again this weekend. The Chilean rookie and the Italian Lamborghini factory driver recently got their breakthrough in the ADAC GT Masters. At the Nürburgring in July, they left for the summer break with a perfectly executed Sunday. Starting from pole position, they celebrated their first victory of the season in the Eifel and thus put themselves in a good position in the championship. Before the start of the second half of the season, the duo is fifth overall, just 18 points behind the leader.
As usual, the weekend starts with the practice sessions on Friday. In the DTM, there are two 45-minute sessions, in the ADAC GT Masters there are two sessions of 60 minutes each. On Saturday and Sunday, there will be a 20-minute qualifying session in both the DTM and the ADAC GT Masters as well as the races over 60 minutes plus one lap. The DTM will once more be broadcast live in over 150 territories worldwide. Fans of the ADAC GT Masters can watch the action on the international livestream on YouTube.
Gottfried Grasser, Team Principal of GRT: "We have a tight programme ahead of us in the next two months with three double headers of DTM and ADAC GT Masters as well as the finale in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe. In the DTM, we want to continue at the Sachsenring where we left off at Lausitzring. Clemens is in great shape and the Top-10 are possible with the performance we showed on the past weekends. We gave everything to fill the second seat for the Sachsenring, but didn't get to a fruitful solution in this current situation. We are of course frustrated to not be entering the second car, but we are looking forward to being able to announce positive news for the Red Bull Ring and the Hockenheimring shortly. As far as our objective for ADAC GT Masters is concerned, after the win we would of course like to keep fighting at the front. Benja has shown an impressive learning curve this season and we are looking forward to the second half of the season with Marco and him."
