Pole position for the championship leaders in the ADAC GT Masters at the Salzburgring. Finn Zulauf (22/Königstein im Taunus/Liqui Moly Team Engstler Motorsport) set the fastest time of 1:25.052 minutes in Saturday’s qualifying session. He and team-mate Felix Hirisger (28/CHE) will start the opening endurance race of the weekend from the very front of the grid in their Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2. “We knew that our car would be good in the rain, and that proved to be the case. The team did a super job again,” said a delighted Zulauf. “This is an extremely important pole, given the current situation. We know that our rivals in the title race will be strong here in dry conditions, and cannot afford to ease off now. We are well prepared for any conditions, as our long runs in the dry on Friday were also good, and we both felt very comfortable.”
Qualifying at the 4.241-kilometre Salzburgring took place in heavy rain, with all the drivers taking to the track on wet-weather tyres. Ambient temperatures around 14 degrees, and a track temperature of just 20 degrees, also posed a challenge for the drivers. As soon as the lights went green, the whole field headed straight out to lay down a lap time. Behind Zulauf, Leo Pichler (24/AUT/Razoon - More than Racing) was the best of the rest. The local driver from Weiz set impressive lap times and was constantly closing in on the leader, but ultimately had to settle for second place, 0.130 seconds slower than Zulauf. “I am very happy with second place on the grid at my home event. That is a good starting position. However, pole would obviously have been even nicer,” said Pichler, whose Austrian team Razoon – more than Racing is also racing in front of a home crowd. “We will see what is possible in this afternoon’s race. We are well equipped for all conditions, and definitely have our sights set on a second home win of the season.”
Starting in third place will be Simon Connor Primm (21/Großschirma/HGL Racing). The Audi driver had dominated Friday’s practice, and backed up that performance in qualifying, coming up just 0.355 seconds short of the pole time. A further 0.046 seconds back was Niklas Kalus (21/Duisburg/Haupt Racing Team). He shares a Ford Mustang GT3 with local favourite Kiano Blum (19/AUT) from Fussach. They are currently third in the table, 38 points off top spot.
Completing the top five was Jamie Day (GBR/20/Comtoyou Racing) in an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo. However, the Brit, together with Juliano Holzem (22/Polch/Schubert Motorsport) in a BMW, had come off the track in the wet conditions, resulting in qualifying being suspended for a while. Leyton Fourie (20/ZAF/FK Performance Motorsport), who lies second in the table, will start Saturday’s race from seventh place in a BMW M4 GT3 Evo.
The first endurance race of the weekend takes place at 14:05 on Saturday afternoon, and will be shown live on free-to-air TV station Sport1. All the action from the 80-minute race can also be seen on Joyn, Servus TV On and the ADAC YouTube channel.
