The final ADAC GT Masters weekend didn't bring the hoped results for the female drivers on the grid: with only one team scoring a Top-10 at Oschersleben, Simona de Silvestro, Rahel Frey and Carrie Schreiner had an unlucky end to a difficult year.
Just one week after the races at Lausitzring, the last round of the premiere German GT3 championship took place at Oschersleben and set to feature the big fight for the 2020 title between ten drivers still in contention. Last year's winners Patric Niederhauser and Kelvin van der Linde (Rutronik Racing) would be hunted down by Robert Renauer (Precote Herberth Motorsport) and the Christian Engelhart and Michael Ammermüller duo (both racing for SSR Performance).
After missing the penultimate round because of different reasons, Carrie Schreiner, Simona de Silvestro and Rahel Frey were back in the ADAC GT Master with their respective teams.
In Race 1, it was Ammermüller to score pole position. He defended his postion at the start and pulled away - but a crash between Niels Langeveld (T3-HRT-Motorsport) and Nikolaj Rogivue (Aust Motorsport) brought out the red flag. A large oil trail had to be removed.
At the restart, Ammermüller again opened up a gap and extended his lead, before his teammate Engelhart safeguarded the position to the chequered flag after the driver change. A short Safety Car neutralization for Dorian Boccolacci's stranded car (Team Zakspeed BKK Mobil Oil Racing) brought the field back closer together, but it posed no threat to Engelhart: the German driver, together with his teammate Ammermüller, took home the victory ahead of Lucas Stolz/Maro Engel and Philip Ellis/Raffaele Marciello. Ammermüller and Engelhart thus took over the lead in the championship standings.
Simona de Silvestro - who had missed the previous round because her #17 Porsche 911 GT3 R had to be re-built after a testing crash - finished in the top ten with teammate Klaus Bachler crossing the line in 8th place. It would be the best result for a team lining up a female driver this weekend.
Carrie Schreiner and Dennis Marschall ended the race in P25 - after the drivers of the #8 Rutronik Audi R8 LMS Evo had left the box area too early and got a drive through penalty for pitstop time infringement.
Rahel Frey and Hendrik von Danwitz had another difficult race and struggled for perfomance. They finished Saturday's race in P24.
It was a dramatic start to Race 2: right at the beginning, a crash on the main straight brought out the red flag. Title contender Kelvin van der Linde was one of the victims and the trigger for the big crash: the Rutronik driver went over the grass at the start, tried to correct but crashed into the Lamborghini of Zimmermann. More cars were involved in the big crash and the race had to be stopped to clear the many damaged cars on the start/finish straight. Simona de Silvestro was also involved in the collision, as she was hit and scraped the wall: "Race 2, getting hit in the left rear and sent into the inside wall, sums up our season... Not much luck on our side", she summed up. It was the end of Simona and Klaus Bachler's race.
Carrie Schreiner - who started last - and Rahel Frey were both able to avoid the first lap chaos and continued the race after the restart.
At the green flag, Raffaele Marciello led the field ahead of Mirko Bortolotti, who tried to push him hard. But, after the driver change, Marciello's teammate Ellis pulled away and finished the race with an over 17 second advantage to claim victory. Bortolloti/Ineichen crossed the finish line in second and Renauer/Jaminet in third. For Ammermüller and Engelhart a 4th place was enough to win the 2020 championship.
Carrie Schreiner and Dennis Marschall finished 19th after taking the start from the tail end of the grid. After missing the previous round at Lausitzring, Carrie was ultimately sixth in the Junior class and 28th in the overall rankings.
"Could have imagined a better way to end this season. But it’s how it is. Congrats for P3 in the junior class and thanks for everything Dennis Marschall. Had many good moments this season but also a few I could learn a lot from. Thanks team for the good times", she commented about her the season.
"We had a difficult year", said Hendrik von Danwitz as he and his teammate Rahel Frey finished again at the back of the grid in P21. The performance issues who accompanied them this whole year would not disappear for the last round of the season.
The next season will start at 14th to 16th May 2021 in Oschersleben - which female drivers we will see again or, hopefully, new entries - isn´t clear yet.
