Bitter disappointment for Callaway Competition in the ADAC-GT Masters at the Lausitzring
Calamity struck the # 77 Callaway Competition Corvette C7 GT3-R at the Lausitzring as the team came up empty through no fault of its own.
On Saturday, Jeffrey Schmidt starting 10th suffered a collision with the # 75 Porsche 911 GT3-R of Thomas Preining starting in the row ahead, forcing both cars out of action on the very first lap of 41 lap race.
The winner, starting from pole, was the series-leading # 29 Audi R8 LMS (Montaplast by Land-Motorsport) of Ricardo Feller and Christopher Mies.
On Sunday, Marvin Kirchhöfer, qualified 7th. Schmidt was among the leaders after the handoff during the mandatory pit stop. In the hunt to score points, the Corvette caught fire on the 33rd lap while running fourth.
As Schmidt tells it, “I was entering the banked corner when a bit of smoke appeared at the front-left of the car. Then, all of a sudden, there was a huge flash of flame from the bonnet. I knew then that it was something serious.”
Remote as it might seem, could a fuel fitting have been jarred loose from impact on the day before? Stranger things have happened.
The winner, again starting from pole, was the # 13 Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Team Zakspeed Mobil Krankenkasse Racing) of Polish junior driver Evo Igor Waliłko & French star and former Callaway driver Jules Gounon.
The sixth round at Sachsenring is next on Oct 1-3.
For the curious, Lausitzring is the only superspeedway in Continental Europe. It was modeled along the lines of the tri-oval at Pocono USA for testing and with high-capacity seating at races to help revive the Brandenburg region of east Germany.
Opening in 1999, the track befell a series of tragedies including a testing accident that killed F1 veteran Michele Alboreto; and an accident in the German 500 CART Champ Car race that grievously injured star driver Alex Zanardi. These incidents led to bankruptcy and conducting races only on a fast road course within the tri-oval.
