Christian Hohenadel experienced a difficult weekend at the third round of the 2011 GT1 World Championship in Portugal. At the demanding track in Portimão, on which Hohenadel claimed the GT3 European Championship title last year with a victory, the 34-year old German and teammate Andrea Piccini finished eight in their Hexis AMR-Aston Martin DBR9 and further filled up their point score.

„Portimão is not really an Aston Martin track. This track suits some of our competitors certainly more then us”, Hohenadel said before the event. Not a big help either on the Portuguese rollercoaster track was the success ballast, which the Aston Martin of Hohenadel had to carry around the hilly track after the brilliant second place in the last round in Belgium.

But nevertheless, the first segment of the three-parted Qualifying wasn’t too bad for Hohenadel. He was ninth quickest and moved easily to the second Qualifying round. In Q2, it was on Andrea Piccini, who unfortunately didn’t make the move to Q3, so Hohenadel/Piccini had to start from 10th position into the Qualifying Race.

In the 60-minute Qualifying Race, Hohenadel/Piccini finished 11th. Hohenadel drove the Aston Martin in the second part of the race and struggled on tire performance. „The race wasn’t to bad, but I had a big drop in the tires at the end and finally, Karl Wendlinger was able to overtake me. We concentrated on the Championship Race this weekend and I hope that we can make up some ground in the Championship Race.”

Also in the Championship Race, the Aston Martin wasn’t the best weapon around the hilly Portimão track. But Hohenadel/Piccini finished eight and further filled up their point score with the third consecutive point finish in the Championship Race. „After a very good performance in the warm-up, we were quite optimistic and had high hopes for the race”, Hohenadel. „But I didn’t had the best start and also struggled with a bad understeer, that finally went from bad to worse. We then had a very good pit stop and finally finished eight. Eight place was our minimum goal this weekend. We archived that, collected once again some points and also got rid of the success ballast for my home race at the Sachsenring. I’m now really looking forward to the Sachsenring race and I’m anxious, how we will perform there. Back in 2008 I took my first win in the ADAC GT Masters in an Aston Martin of the Hexis squad at the Sachsenring, I hope we will have a similar success this year.

Source : Christian Hohenadel