ROWE RACING had a weekend with highs and lows in its first “home round at the Nürburgring” with the ADAC GT Masters. The team from Worms in Germany, regularly competing in the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring had high expectations coming to the Eifel region and had the first podium finish in the super sports car league as its clear goal. In the two entertaining races at the Nürburgring, however, the only tangible results were a fourth and a sixth place for Maro Engel (Monaco) and Jan Seyffarth (Germany). The sister car, driven by Jaime Alguersuari (Spain) and Nico Bastian (Germany) retired from both races, each time due to innocently being involved in accidents on the opening lap.
ROWE RACING principal, Michael Zehe: “This was my first visit of an ADAC GT Masters event. Admittedly, the Nürburgring is our home track, but the drivers’ field is extremely strong and no presents are given. However, I am quite satisfied with the performance of our team. With a fifth and a seventh place on the grid, we were able to show in qualifying already that we are becoming more and more established in this great series. Unfortunately, we lost our #22 car after innocently having become involved in accidents on both days. The showing of our #23 car was even stronger because of it, only just missing out on a podium finish on Saturday. We will continue to work in a determined way and we will hopefully be able to celebrate our first ADAC GT Masters podium finish soon.”
RACE 01: Saturday, 30 August 2014
After a thrilling qualifying in changeable weather conditions on Friday, Maro Engel claimed seventh place on the grid with the number #23 car, but only three thousandths of a second separated him from fifth position. For team-mate Nico Bastian with the #22 sister car, twelfth place on the grid was the result. After a good start, Bastian was able to make up several position, but then crashed into the barriers and retired after being hit by an opponent who lost had control of his car at the Mercedes Arena. Maro Engel also had a perfect start and was already fourth after the opening lap. He defended this position until the driver change. In the remainder of the race, Jan Seyffarth mounted several attacks on the driver in third place, but never had a real opportunity to overtake and thus crossed the finish line in fourth place overall, only 0.453 seconds down on P3, scoring ROWE RACING’s best season result to date.
RACE 02: Sunday, 31 August 2014
The second race of the weekend was also marked by thrilling racing. While Jaime Alguersuai, who had started fifth, had to park his gullwing in the pits following an accident on the opening lap, Jan Seyffarth made up several positions from twelfth on the grid. Halfway through the race, he came into the pits for the driver change to team-mate Maro Engel while in sixth place. Maro Engel rejoined the race in seventh. A safety car intervention on lap 22 added excitement in the final quarter of the race. On lap 30, Engel managed to claim back sixth place and defended it until the finish.
ROWE RACING’s next ADAC GT Masters outing takes place at the Sachsenring from 19 till 21 September.