Jonathan Cecotto (26/VEN/Haupt Racing Team) secured pole position on Saturday, as the Salzburgring hosted the ADAC GT Masters for the first time. The Venezuelan set a time of 1:17.052 minutes in his Ford Mustang GT3 in the opening qualifying of the weekend. This was the first pole position fin the ADAC’s GT3 series for the son of former Formula 1 and DTM driver and motorcycle world champion Johnny Cecotto.
“I am very happy. I had hoped to achieve this much sooner, but better late than never. We have made a great start to the day, but should not celebrate too much yet, as we still have a long day ahead of us and a lot can happen in the race,” said the beaming pole-setter, who shares the car with Dennis Fetzer (24/Gießen). “As soon as I did my first laps here at the Salzburgring, I knew it could be a super weekend. We have seen that the opposition has good race pace and that it is not going to be easy. But the goal is clear: we want to win.”
Joining Cecotto on the front row of the grid for the first endurance race of the weekend at the 4.255-kilometre circuit is his team-mate Finn Wiebelhaus (19/Obertshausen). The championship leader was just 0.015 seconds off the top time. Alexander Fach (23/CHE/Fach Auto Tech) starts the race from third place. The Swiss, at the wheel of a Porsche 911 GT3 R, was 0.036 seconds slower than Cecotto.
Fourth place in qualifying went to guest starter Guilherme de Oliveira (20/POR). The Portuguese is racing for Dörr Motorsport at the Salzburgring and shares the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo with DTM driver Ben Dörr. Rounding out the top five was the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 of Paul Motorsport with Simon Connor Primm (20/Großschirma) at the wheel. The whole ADAC GT Masters field looked in fine form, with eleven drivers within a second of each other.
The opening race of the weekend begins at 14:50 and will be broadcast live on Sport1.de, Joyn, ServusTV ON and youtube.com/ADACMotorsports . The 80-minute endurance race features two pit stops with driver changeovers, refuelling and one tyre change.
