ADAC GT Masters Weekend
Sachsenring
May 13th - 15th, 2011

“We did everything right today”, this is not only Christopher Haase’s comment on the first place he won convincingly in the second ADAC GT Masters race. Bernhard Demmer (project manager for GT3 Phoenix Racing Pole Promotion) was very pleased with the achieved results as well: “Our pilots have made no mistakes despite the rather difficult conditions. A perfect performance.”

The ADAC GT Masters Weekend at the Sachsenring is very special. 45,000 spectators marvelled at pure GT power. This weekend, the GT3 racers of the ADAC GT Masters met with the FIA GT1 World Championship and the wide variety of brands made the heart of many motorsports fans beat a little faster.

It was the second round for Christopher Haase (GER) and Andreas Simonsen (SWE) in the Audi R8 LMS (Phoenix Racing Pole Promotion).

Compared to the first race of the season in Oschersleben, the qualifying sessions worked much better for the two of them. Simonsen qualified for start position 10 in the first session. Christopher Haase placed his Audi in P7 in the second qualifying.

“We were able to make the most of the free practice session and had a very fast car in the qualifying sessions. However, I was not able to utilise the full performance of my tyres. When my tyres were at their peak I was stuck behind cars coming out of the pit. Nevertheless I am very happy, especially since the top ten cars were very close in time,” says Christopher Haase.

The start of the first race was overshadowed by a bad crash. The safety car came out. Everybody breathed a sigh of relief when both drivers got out of their cars unharmed.

Simonsen completed the first few laps in P9 behind the safety car. The restart went smoothly. With his consistent lap times Simonsen became a serious competitor of those of the top group. The team of Phoenix Racing Pole Promotion showed perfect timing with the pit stop. The Swede was brought in early enough and Christopher Haase took the Audi over in P5. Haase managed to top that and drove the Audi R8 across the finish line in 4th place.
“I was very close behind Asch and Ammermüller in the last lap. Maybe we could have reached the podium on Saturday given a little more time.”

The starting grid for the second race on Sunday was disturbed by a short downpour. The start was delayed by about 10 minutes, allowing the teams to fit wet tyres. Haase stayed on slicks for the safety car start.
“It is pretty difficult to warm up the tyres on a wet track but I managed well anyway. There are a few key positions where you have grip for a short time despite the wetness.”
The track dried and the disadvantage was that cars with slicks suddenly had an advantage over cars with wet tyres. Haase was able to use the full pace of his car and fought for the lead.
Andreas Simonsen took the leading car over from Christopher Haase and emerged with a 9 second lead. Simonsen defended the first place phenomenally and secured the highest and first place on the podium this season for Haase/Simonsen.
The sister car with Rene Rast and Stefan Landmann in the cockpit drove across the finish line in second place.

Christopher Haase:
“It was a very successful weekend for us. The team did an outstanding job. Andreas had strong nerves in the second race and confidently secured our victory. I would also like to congratulate the pilots of the Phoenix Racing sister car.”

Bernhard Demmer (Team coordinator Phoenix Racing):
“Our setup for the qualifying sessions was more aggressive, for the races it was more neutral again in order to preserve the tyres. It worked very well as was visible on Saturday. The racing speed was phenomenal. Christopher set the fastest lap in his race. The performance and the stability were very good. Consequently, we only made minor modifications for the second race on Sunday and the result speaks for itself. It was a bit of a poker at the start and we looked at the first 10 cars at the start. We decided on slicks in the very last second as did the majority of teams. Everything worked perfectly for us. I would like to thank the drivers. Christopher was the fastest pilot in the field. He showed a great performance and Andreas managed to secure the victory phenomenally.”

mmr/motioncompany