Hohenstein-Ernstthal, Germany: ADAC GT Masters defending champion Kelvin van der Linde has broken a long dry spell with his first win of the 2015 season.
In temperatures of over 30 degrees - which must have reminded him of his home in Johannesburg - at the Sachsenring in eastern Germany, he and new team-mate Stefan Wackerbauer took their Audi R8 LMS Ultra to a cliff-hanger finish, just 0.636sec ahead after a glorious duel with the Bentley Continental GT3 of Clemens Schmid and Fabian Hamprecht, who posted their maiden podium finish.
“I have no words,” said a delighted Van der Linde, who also won here in 2014. “Sachsenring is my favourite track; things could not have gone more perfectly than they did today.”
Klaus Bachler and Martin Raginger finished third in a Porsche 911 GT3 R, just 12 seconds down after 80 minutes and 41 laps of the 3.645km circuit.
That took them back up to second in the championship standings and threw the 2015 GT Masters title wide open again, reducing their deficit to just 23 points with four races still to be run, after championship leaders Sebastian Asch and Luca Ludwig were forced out when their Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG developed a steering gremlin.
PERFECT PITSTOP
At the start Van der Linde slotted into third behind Bachler's Porsche and Hamprecht in the Bentley - and stayed out a lap longer when the leaders went in for their mandatory driver change.
A very slick pit stop by the C.Abt Racing pit crew had the red Audi ready to go before either of them and Wackerbauer got back on the circuit just ahead of Schmid in the Bentley and Ragginger, taking the second shift in the Porsche.
Schmid put the 19-year-old GT Masters rookie under continuous pressure throughout the second stint but was never able to make the pass, eventually conceding defeat by about two cars' lengths.
“It's incredible,” said Wackerbauer after recording his maiden win in the series. “We've finally done it. The key was the late pit stop after Kelvin's perfect preliminary work - that put us into the lead.”
The battle for third was equally hard fought; Ragginger had to fend off a late charge from Luca Stolz in a Bentley Continental GT3 he shared with Maximilian Buhk.
Hari Proczyk and Andreas Simonsen (Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3) were fifth ahead of Florian Stoll and Marc Basseng (Audi R8 LMS Ultra), local hero Philip Geipel from nearby Plauen and Rahel Frey in an other R8.
Saturday's race winners Dominik Baumann and Jens Klingmann (BMW Z4 GT3) had to their way up the field from 13th to eighth after problems in qualifying, which dropped them to third in the championship standings, 31 points down on the leaders.
Ninth were South African Jordan Lee Pepper, younger brother of Polo Cup and Formula VW racer Tasmin, and Danish driver Nikki Thiim in the second Abt R8, ahead of Andreas Wirth and Daniel Keilwitz in the Callaway Competition Corvette.