News

“PIXUM Team Schubert” powered by Jochen Schweizer finished the opening weekend of the ADAC GT Masters season in their home town of Oschersleben with a podium place in the race on Sunday. Dominik Baumann (AT) and Claudia Hürtgen (DE) in the number 19 BMW Z4 GT3 made up a place to finish third after starting from fourth. In the first race on Saturday, Baumann and Hürtgen started eighth, but lost a lot of places at the first corner. After a strong recovery they managed to finish sixth to secure some vital points. 

Jens Klingmann (DE) and Max Sandritter (DE) in car number 20 were extremely unlucky in both races and didn't manage to finish in the points in Oschersleben. Klingmann experienced a moment of terror on Sunday when he was involved in a serious accident at the start. In a chain reaction he was hit by another vehicle in a pile-up and was forced into the wall. Fortunately Klingmann was relatively unscathed. However, the BMW Z4 GT3 was badly damaged and was unable to restart the race. On Saturday, Sandritter was hit by another competitor in the first few metres of the race, which broke a rim on his car. He managed to make it back to the pits, but after being lapped neither he nor Klingmann stood a chance. They only managed to finish in 20th. 

Stefan Wendl (Team Manager Schubert Motorsport): “Overall I'm very pleased with the performance of the BMW Z4 GT3. We knew the track in Oschersleben wasn't going to be ideal for the car, so did a lot of testing to work hard on our weaknesses. It paid off. Both cars had the same speed and showed that they can be at the sharp end of the field. With number 19 we did the best we could on this track. I'm delighted with the podium at our home race. Unfortunately we were terribly unlucky with number 20 in both races. That type of accident at the start on Sunday is common in the ADAC GT Masters. The competition is so strong that it is always extremely close. All the team bosses agree that the lights should have gone green earlier.” 

Dominik Baumann (BMW Z4 GT3, car number 19): “Before the weekend we said that the key to this season would be to score points in every race. We did really well here in Oschersleben. Unfortunately on Saturday Claudia was forced into the gravel and fell back to 19th. It was an amazing achievement that we managed to finish sixth from there. On Sunday I was lucky at the start. I glanced in my rear mirror and saw a giant dust cloud right behind me. I didn't manage to get my tyres to the perfect temperature for the restart so fell back from second place to third. However, we were able to bring home third place comfortably.” 

Jens Klingmann (BMW Z4 GT3, car number 20): “Everything hurts after the severe crash, but the medical centre gave me the all-clear. Apart from a few bruises, I'm fine. I started well and beginning to make up places. Suddenly the Audi came crashing into me from the left-hand side at a right angle. I couldn't do anything and just tensed all my muscles and waited for it to be over. It was a really unlucky starting accident. The rest of our weekend was also unfortunate. Max was hit at the start on Saturday, which broke a rim. At least the qualifying sessions showed us that we are among the front runners in terms of speed. That's encouraging for the coming races.”