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Points and Junior podium at Nürburgring

• Honda Team Schubert Motorsport achieved some great results to get the second half of the ADAC GT Masters season under way
• Making progress now: Christopher Dreyspring and Giorgio Maggi finish in Top Ten and on Junior Podium
• Frank Link: “Saturday’s result shows that we’ve done our homework and understand how the car functions and the direction we need to take"

Fantastic weather, fantastic setting, fantastic result! Honda Team Schubert Motorsport got the second half of the ADAC GT Masters off to a terrific start at the Nürburgring. It could hardly have gone better. The driver pairing of Christopher Dreyspring and Giorgio Maggi finished in the points for the first time this season and also took P3 on the Junior podium.

By taking fourth place for their NSX GT3 early on in practice, Honda Team Schubert Motorsport made it clear that they were going to be a force to be reckoned with. Young Dreyspring went out to produce a similar performance with P12 in qualifying, finishing just 0.363 seconds down on the pole-sitter.

Dreyspring’s strong performance in qualifying was followed by an equally strong start, during which he immediately shot up into P9. The team opted for a late pit stop and team-mate Maggi rejoined the track in eighth place after the driver changeover. He pulled out all the stops and crossed the finish line in seventh place. A retrospective penalty handed to a fellow competitor bumped the team up one more position into sixth place, securing the best ever result for the Honda NSX GT3 in the ADAC GT Masters!

A very special VIP guest was at the track and was highly delighted with the result and trophies in the Junior classification. Yoshiaki Ikehata, President of Honda Germany, had come to the Nürburgring to see Honda Team Schubert Motorsport and to experience for himself the terrific atmosphere at the Nürburgring.

Dreyspring and Maggi showed plenty of fighting spirit once again in the second race on Sunday. Maggi finished 35th in qualifying in a very hotly contested ADAC GT Masters field, missing a place in the Top Ten by less than a second. Maggi worked his way forward a bit until the driver handover, after which Dreyspring continued the charge up the field. They finished 23rd, having gained twelve positions in all.

Team Manager, Frank Link: “We can be very pleased with this weekend. We scored our first points for the Honda NSX GT3, and Giorgio and Christopher were presented with their first Junior trophies. Saturday’s result shows that we’ve done our homework and understand how the car functions and the direction we need to take. Christopher produced a great performance on Saturday with grid slot twelve and could perhaps even have found a couple of tenths of a second. His start was great and Giorgio also delivered after the driver changeover. Of course, we also benefited from retirements in front of us, but that’s racing. Giorgio did not get the best of hot laps on Sunday, which quickly dropped us way down in this high-calibre field. We did really well to finish 23rd in the end.”

Christopher Dreyspring (start number 9): “All the hard work that the team have put in on a day-to-day basis has finally paid off. We’ve taken our first points and also finished on the Junior podium! It shows that we’re improving steadily. It’s a good starting point for the future. However, I was still not completely satisfied with my performance in qualifying, as I might have been able to squeeze a few more tenths of a second out of the car, and then we would have been further up the grid. Aside from that, it’s been a very positive weekend when we finally broke our duck and scored points.”

Giorgio Maggi (start number 9): “The Junior podium in Race 1 was terrific, even though we didn’t get our trophy until afterwards. It was great for us as drivers and for the whole team to show that we can fight for top positions. I’m still not satisfied with my performance in qualifying. I twice encountered a much slower car on my four hot laps, and my other two attempts were not completely error-free on my part. I know where I need to improve to be in a position to repeat our terrific result from Race 1.”