Chemnitz, Germany - South African teen sensation Kelvin van der Linde and his German team-mate René Rast have increased their lead in the ADAC GT Masters championship for GT3 sports cars with a double win at the Sachsenring.
The 18-year-old Van der Linde and his experienced 27-year-old German partner won both one-hour races that made up the seventh round of the series in their Audi R8 LMS ultra, taking the honours from pole in Race 1 on Friday by 1.3 seconds from Christian Engelhart of Germany and their nearest championship rival, Jaap van Lagen of Holland, in a Porsche 911 GT3.
Pole-sitter Van der Linde needed nerves of steel in the first half of the race; he converted pole position into a race lead, but then saw it whittled away by two safety-car periods in the first seven laps. The yellow flags first came out after a collision on the opening lap and again on lap six after a mechanical breakdown left a car stranded in the middle of the track.
Rast took over in the lead and also had safety car periods to contend with, but fought off a determined challenge from Engelhart to take a narrow victory.
This second victory of the season was a lot longer coming than we had wanted," said a beaming Van der Linde after the race.
"We're very pleased that we finished ahead of our closest rivals - this gives us a bit more breathing space at the top."
The Audi pair started from third in Sunday's race, with Rast at the wheel for the first half-hour. He handed over to Van der Linde in the lead and Van der Linde almost immediately had to contend with rain that had earlier affected the qualifying session on Friday.
Then the rear diffuser of the Audi fell off and he had to use all his racecraft to keep the rest of the field at bay, eventually fin ishing 2.2 seconds ahead of Robert Renauer and Dominik Schwager of Germany in a Porsche 911 GTR 3, and 6.3 seconds ahead of Prosperia Audi team-mates Fabian Hamprecht of Germany and Nicki Thiim of Denmark.
With one round and two one-hour races remaining, the South African/German duo lead Jaap van Lagen by 35 points (205 to 170) and Claudia Hürtgen of Germany and Dominik Baumann of Austria by 46 points (205 to 159).
The final round will be run at the Hockenheimring in Germany on 4 and 5 October.