• Third place in the Sunday race for Fabian Vettel and Philip Ellis
• Maiden ADAC GT Masters overall podium finish for the MANN-FILTER Team HTP Motorsport junior duo

After second place for Maximilian Götz (GER) and Indy Dontje (NED) in the most recent ADAC GT Masters round in Spielberg, a Mercedes-AMG GT3 of the MANN-FILTER Team HTP Motorsport also finishes on the winners’ podium at Zandvoort this weekend. In a thrilling Sunday race at the famous dune circuit, teammates Fabian Vettel and Philip Ellis (both GER) were able to secure third place. This is the maiden overall podium finish in the super sports car league for the junior duo. In the challenging race on Saturday, Vettel/Ellis had also scored the best result of the six participating Mercedes-AMG Customer Racing cars by finishing seventh.

At the 4.307 kilometres long Circuit Zandvoort, fans got to see an action-packed start of the second half of the ADAC GT Masters season. For the teams with the Mercedes-AMG GT3s, the weekend had highs and lows in store. While there were several retirements in the race on Saturday, the race on Sunday concluded the weekend on a positive note from Mercedes-AMG Motorsport’s perspective with the podium finish for Fabian Vettel and Philip Ellis.

For the race on Sunday, Ellis had secured himself a good grid position by qualifying in third place. With the #48 MANN-FILTER Team HTP Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3, he successfully defended his position and handed the car to Vettel on course for a podium finish. Thanks to the well-timed driver change, the 20-year-old from Heppenheim rejoined the race in second position with the yellow-and-green ‘mamba’. After that, the junior driver staged an entertaining duel to defend his second place. Just before the one-hour race duration had elapsed, he had to let his rival past and concentrated on defending his third position. After 36 laps, the maiden overall podium finish in the ADAC GT Masters for Vettel/Ellis was in the books.

Behind the #48, Luca Stolz also had a good start with the #2 Team Toksport WRT Mercedes-AMG GT3 and moved up from sixth to fifth on the opening lap. After the driver change, Maro Engel was able to bring this position home and thus completed a successful debut for the team that drove as guests. With the #21 Zakspeed Mercedes-AMG GT3, the duo of Jimmy Eriksson (SWE) and Jeroen Bleekemolen (NED) managed to improve from its 20^th position on the grid to finish 16^th and therefore also scored points. Meanwhile, a time penalty because of speeding in the pit lane prevented a point-scoring success for the #47 MANN-FILTER Team HTP Motorsport entry: Götz and Dontje, who were still on the podium at Spielberg, now had to make do with 21^st place.

A difficult race on Saturday preceded the podium finish on Sunday. Only two of the six participating cars from Affalterbach managed to take the chequered flag. Here, too, Ellis and Vettel secured the best result after an entertaining recovery drive: in stormy weather, but dry track conditions, the duo worked its way up from 24^th on the grid to finish seventh overall. There were also championship points for the #21 Team Zakspeed BKK Mobil Oil Racing: local hero Bleekemolen and his Swedish teammate Eriksson improved from 27^th on the grid to 13^th at the finish. The next two ADAC GT Masters races will already be taking place at the Nürburgring next weekend (16-18 August).

Fabian Vettel, MANN-FILTER Team HTP Motorsport #48: “I am really happy. Our Mercedes-AMG GT3 simply worked perfectly, already yesterday when we had this crazy recovery. Today, Philip has also done a super job. His third place from qualifying was mega! In the race, I came under pressure during my stint and I tried to somehow defend second place, but at a certain time, I was no longer able to keep the pace. But third place isn’t too bad either.”

Philip Ellis, MANN-FILTER Team HTP Motorsport #48: “Now that was simply just cool today! The entire day was almost perfect. In qualifying, I managed to do a super lap so that we suddenly found ourselves in P3. For the race, that was a super position to start from, especially here at Zandvoort where overtaking opportunities are rather rare. In the race, we were able to maintain our position and even make up one place during the driver change. However, we were aware that it would become difficult towards the end. Fabian did it very well! We will celebrate today, that much is certain!”

Maro Engel, Toksport WRT #2: “Thanks to Toksport WRT. The team has done a great job in its debut weekend and provided us with a very fast car. Both yesterday and today, we were in the top five with it. In the race on Saturday, we had bad luck. A small gasket was torn, so that we had problems with the steering and sadly had to park the car. Today, things were going better and we were able to bring our position home. Now, we are looking forward to our next guest races at the Nürburgring.”

* excerpt subject to confirmation by the organiser