Allied racing continues to cause a stir in its debut year in the ADAC GT Masters. At the Nürburgring, the first podium places in the German GT Championship were achieved with second place on Saturday and third place on Sunday. And this time they will last, in contrast to Oschersleben.
The next step in their own plan is the first victory for the Porsche team in the ADAC GT Masters, as driver Joel Sturm emphasizes in an interview with ‘Motorsport-Total.com’. Especially since in the weeks between Zandvoort and the Nürburgring you “found a little something on the car”, as Sturm reveals.
That was “definitely another step” ahead, the young German continued. “And now we hope that at the end of the season there will be another step so that we can still be at the top this year.” The team has to analyze where there are still steps to be taken. “But there are definitely still a few spots left.”
Allied Racing fastest Porsche at the Nürburgring
Here it depends on which path Allied Racing takes in vehicle development. Team boss Jan Kasperlik already emphasized in Zandvoort that he definitely wants to go his own way. This approach has at least paid off at the Nürburgring.
There, Allied Racing established itself as a spearhead in the Porsche camp. Even the Joos duo Christian Engelhart and Ayhancan Güven, ahead of the overall standings before the race weekend in the Eifel, could not keep up with the competition within the brand.
“We still have a few small tasks to do, but the basic pace is there. At least this weekend we were the fastest Porsche. That’s also important for the team and important for the manufacturer’s relationship with Porsche,” says Sturm.
Sven Müller with a top starting lap on Sunday
Sturm and team-mate Sven Müller were in the lead within the brand on Sunday, despite the ballast for P2 in Saturday’s race. Müller laid the foundation for this with an extremely strong first lap. Starting from P12, the Porsche driver worked his way through the turmoil in the starting phase and came back from the first lap in fifth place.
A performance that left his young teammate Sturm a little speechless: “I only saw that he had already made up a few positions at the start in turn 1. Then there were a few collisions between other cars, and he was able to benefit from that again. But then I was a bit surprised that I was fifth.”
Sturm is convinced that the leap onto the winner’s podium would not have been “possible” without such a starting lap. “But we’ll take it with us anyway.” In the drivers’ standings, Müller/Sturm jumped up to fourth place. The brand colleagues Engelhart/Güven are only five points behind.