Possible title decisions in the penultimate ADAC Masters Weekend

Five race series are staging twelve races in Assen For its penultimate event of the 2011 season, 16 to 18 September, the motorsport fraternity of the ADAC Masters Weekend heads to Assen in The Netherlands. At the fast TT Circuit, the four regular series ADAC GT Masters, ATS Formula 3 Cup, Formula ADAC and ADAC Procar, plus the European FIA GT4 Cup will be in action. The schedule includes a total of twelve races, split up on the Saturday and the Sunday. And perhaps, there will already be early title decisions. Excitement is guaranteed. Tickets for the motorsport festival with more than 150 highly motivated drivers costs 15 euros per person per day, including paddock access. For children up to 14 years, accompanied by an adult, admission is free. ADAC GT Masters: chasers have Margaritis/Lunardi in sightFormer DTM driver Alexandros Margaritis (GR) and his French team partner Dino Lunardi had to make their way home from the EuroSpeedway Lausitz without having sprayed champagne on the podium. And still, the LIQUI MOLY Team Engstler’s two BMW ALPINA drivers were the secret winners of the previous competition weekend. With 24 points, they were by far the most successful pairing from the ranks of the top title candidates and took over the championship lead with 133 points. Erstwhile leaders Johannes and Ferdinand Stuck (A/A) dropped back to second with their Reiter Engineering Lamborghini after a pair of non-scores and came under pressure from third-placed Luca Ludwig/Christopher Mies (D/D). The ABT Audi duo has 107 points, the Stuck brothers have 116, with a maximum of 50 points at stake on every weekend. When Margaritis and Lunardi manage to extend their margin to over 50 points at Assen, they have already secured the title. However, the track record at Assen speaks in favour of the chasers, because so far, only mid-engined sports cars like the Lamborghini of the Stucks or the ABT-Audis, successful in the last two years, have won races at the fast TT Circuit. Obviously, the local heroes are highly motivated, first and foremost Peter Kox. The sports car stalwart intends to help his Reiter-Lamborghini team-mate, Marc A. Hayek (CH) win the amateur title. Team HEICO Motorsport’s Christiaan Frankenhout, who has won one race so far, is aiming at the unofficial crown of the best Mercedes driver of the year. Currently, he and his team-mate Andreas Wirth are ranked fourth in this brand-internal competition. Another SLS gullwing sports car is raced by the two Dutch stalwarts Michael Bleekemolen and Ronald van de Laar. As a guest entrant, the Faster Racing team is running a pair of BMW Z4s for Ricardo van der Ende/Duncan Huisman and Jeroen den Boer/Simon Knap. ATS Formula 3 Cup: Stanaway wants to claim the next titleATS Formula 3 Cup high-flyer Richie Stanaway already wrapped up the title of the best rookie at Lausitz and he has planned his next stroke at Assen: securing the overall title. This would be a perfect scenario for his team Van Amersfoort Racing that has its home round at Assen. The Dutch team is running three cars, the other two Dallara-Volkswagens being raced by local drivers Jeroen Mul and Hannes van Asseldonk. Stanaway’s only remaining rival in the battle for the title is Dane Marco Sørensen. However, he is already 29 points adrift, with 24 points at stake every weekend. In fact, the only thing Sørensen can do is hoping for Stanaway to start making mistakes. Which hasn’t happened so far … Formula ADAC: Wehrlein can wrap it upAt the moment, everything speaks for Pascal Wehrlein (D) winning the 2011 Formula ADAC title. He is 67 points clear of his closest rival, Briton Emil Bernstorff. Accordingly, the question isn’t so much who will wrap up the title, but when this happens. At Assen, or only in the final weekend at Hockenheim? As long as they still have theoretical chances, chasers Bernstorff, Sven Müller (D), Artem Markelov (RUS) and Kean Kristensen (DK) will, of course, do everything to keep the battle for the title open or at least claim runner-up spot. At the other end of the rankings, Dutch driver Peter Hoevenaars is trying to make his way up from the back end to the midfield. So far, his personal best is a pair of tenth places. His ambitious goal for the final part of the season is to score at least one top five finish. ADAC PROCAR: Leidinger is holding all the trumpsIn fact, the only thing BMW driver Johannes Leidinger (D) needs to do to claim an early title win, is just what he has been doing consequently in all season rounds held so far: finishing on the podium. Leidinger has won seven of the twelve rounds and has scored four second places and one third place. His only remaining rival for the title in Division 1 for Super 2000 cars is fellow BMW driver Jens Weimann. The driver from northern Germany was equally successful, but had a pair of non-scores at the start of the season, a heavy burden that he hasn’t been able to make up for thus far. In Division 2, the duel for the title is between points’ leader Nils Mierschke (D, Ford) and runner-up Guido Thierfelder (D, Peugeot). With a gap of only nine points, everything is still open. FIA GT4 Cup: double duty for the points’ leadersIn the European GT4 Cup, two Dutch drivers are setting the pace with Ricardo van der Ende leading Duncan Huisman. However, instead of only focussing on the battle for the title, the BMW drivers are also racing together in the ADAC GT Masters at Assen. Chasers Stefano d’Aste (I, Lotus) and Peter van der Kolk (NL, Corvette) are now biding their chance to move up to the front. The cup for production-based GT cars has three races during the ADAC Masters Weekend at Assen. For the series, this is the penultimate event of the season.TV coverage on kabel eins, SPORT1, Sky Sports, Fox Sports and Motors TVTV round-ups of the events at Assen will be broadcast by “kabel eins” (19 September, 1.15 a.m.) and “SPORT1” (23 September, 5.30 p.m.). “kabel eins” is broadcasting the ADAC GT Masters races on Saturday and Sunday from 11.45 a.m. Foreign broadcasting stations include Sky Sports, Fox Sports and Motors TV.


Related Motorsport Articles

84,520 articles