ADAC GT Masters
Oschersleben
April 23rd – 25th, 2011

The ADAC GT Masters race in the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben marks the start of the fifth season. Over 40 cars want to win the coveted GT3 championship title after 16 races on 8 weekends. With more GT Masters competitors than ever the races will be a challenge for every pilot and will keep the audience on the edge of their seat. And not only at the circuit because both races will be broadcast live by German TV station Kabel1.

23-year old Christopher Haase (Kirchleus) returns to the successful German racing series after competing in the FIA GT1 World Championship last season. He will share a Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS with Swede Andreas Simonsen (21).
“This will surely be an exciting season. I am looking forward to working with Phoenix,” says Christopher Haase.

With a lap time of 1:29.630 Haase and Simonsen were amongst the top competitors in the free practice session. However, due to the enormous traffic density and many yellow phases in the two qualifying sessions the Phoenix pilots were not able to reach the achieved times again. The qualifying session became a game of luck for the pilots.
 

“The qualifying session should reflect the performance and not whether or not you are lucky enough to drive a lap with fewer cars. I would suggest dividing the field into two groups,” says Dirk Theimann (Phoenix Racing team manager).
Andreas Simonsen qualified for start position 18 for the first race on Sunday. Christopher Haase reached start position 16 for the race on Easter Monday.

Contrary to all expectations the GT cars completed the first turn after the start without damages. Having reached P14 after the first lap, Simonsen handed the Audi over to Christopher Haase during the pit stop in P12. This took a little longer than planned, causing Haase to lose valuable time. The 23-year old got into a fight with Michael Ammermüller (Porsche 911 GT3 R) and drove across the finish line in P10, two places in front of the a-workx-Porsche.

Christopher Haase started the second race on this Easter weekend with fine weather from P16. The ADAC GT Masters pilots pushed into the first turn, starting the one hour long race in the Magedeburger Boerde with more clouds of dust and surprisingly few damages. Haase pushed forward to P6 during his stint. The pit stop and driver change took time. Due to problems with the seatbelt Simonsen came back on the track in P17. The 21-year old Swede showed a good performance placing the Phoenix Audi in P7 again. Three laps before the end of the race, Farnbacher’s Ferrari and Simonsen’s Audi touched in the turn leading to the start-finish straight. Simonsen was forced to drive into the pit due to tyre damage and only scored P25.

Christopher Haase:
“Our car worked really well. There were just some unfortunate situations; yellow phases and a lot of traffic in the qualifying session. We were successful in the races, especially in the second one. Unfortunately, the stops did not go well and Andreas was involved in a crash shortly before the end of the race. All things considered, we were very happy with the performance. Andreas is a very good partner and Phoenix Racing is a great team. I am looking forward to the Sachsenring weekend now. Again I have a really good package for 2011 with Phoenix and my sponsor flatex.”
 
Dirk Theimann, Phoenix team manager:
“The races, especially the second one, proved that the performance of the car is fine. Despite the bad results in the qualifying session we were able to show in the races that our cars are fast. We also observed that you need at least start position 10 to be in the top group because of the high level of performance.”

Ernst Moser, Phoenix Racing team principal:
“We learned the hard way in the qualifying session; we aimed for the top ten and reached P16 and P18. In general, we were happy with the races. But as is the case with races, there are different factors coming together, like problems with the pit stops and crashes during the races. In the end we lost a lot of places and could not finish the second race. But this is motorsport. Now we move on and next time we need to be better.”