Team Rosberg just barely misses ADAC GT Masters podium position

After a difficult first race at the ADAC GT Masters race weekend at Assen Team Rosberg scored valuable championship points on Sunday. Jan Seyffarth and Bernd Herndlhofer in their Audi R8 LMS took fourth place in round two on the Dutch circuit.The team under the direction of Arno Zensen contested the only foreign round of the "dream sports car league” with a new line-up in the car designated as number "8”. New signing Jan Seyffarth who won both races of the ADAC GT Masters at Assen in 2009 shared the Audi with Herndlhofer. Car number "7” was piloted by Michael Ammermüller and Kenneth as before. The weekend for Team Rosberg had seen a promising start with fast times set in free practice. Both vehicles achieved top-six places in both sessions and in the second free practice Ammermüller/Heyer even set the fastest time. Consequently, the racing team based in Neustadt an der Weinstraße started to the two-part qualifying with optimism. But in the first segment the "number 8” Audi R8 LMS only achieved tenth place while the "sister car” occupied eleventh. Things went better in the second qualifying session when Jan Seyffarth secured second place with a narrow margin in front of his team colleague Michael Ammermüller.Halfway through the first race, heavy rain caused difficult conditions. Ammermüller and Heyer were already running in ninth place but, in addition to their mandatory pit stop, had to pit again to switch to wets. This stop caused the duo to drop to seventh place but thanks to pushing hard to recover they managed to secure ninth place again. Herndlhofer and Seyffarth were struck by misfortune, though. Herndlhofer, who drove the first stint, was turned around on lap one by a BMW-Alpina and lost more than one lap before being able to resume the race. From 21st, the Austrian and his team colleague Seyffarth managed to push forward to 14th place. "Unfortunately, we were a bit unlucky with ‘car number 7’ regarding the safety car that was deployed on account of some incidents on the track,” said Team Manager Peter Reinisch. "After our mandatory stop we went out on the track again directly behind the safety car which caused us to lose one lap. With the second car we took the risk of continuing the race on slicks but as the rain kept getting heavier and heavier, the risk didn’t pay off.”On Sunday things went better for the German-Austrian duo. Seyffarth/Herndlhofer were running in third place up to five laps before the end of the race but then were bumped to fourth. For their team colleagues Ammermüller/Heyer all the indications were for a points finish as well. But on lap 25 out of 31 Heyer spun in a chicane and dropped to tenth place, the position on which the German would ultimately finish the race."Considering our good starting base with grid positions two and three we’re not happy with the outcome of the second race,” commented Reinisch. "There was higher potential today. But at times we weren’t able to keep the pace of the other Audi cars in the race, so we now need to look at the reasons during tests.” The next rounds of the ADAC GT Masters will be held at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz on 14 and 15 August.

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