A successful weekend for Mercedes-AMG at Zandvoort. In the first race on Saturday, Mercedes-AMG Driver Maximilian Götz and his teammate Markus Pommer were already able to take the ADAC GT Masters championship lead with a sixth-place finish. In the process, they also scored further valuable championship points in the teams’ standings for the MANN-FILTER Team HTP Motorsport, which is still leading after the fifth of this season’s seven rounds. In the race on Sunday, Mercedes-AMG Driver Raffaele Marciello and Patrick Assenheimer came to the fore: with second place in the #84 AutoArena Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3, they scored the best result. The duo Götz/Pommer with the #47 car and their MANN-FILTER Team HTP Motorsport teammates, Maximilian Buhk and local hero Indy Dontje rounded out the good team result with fourth and fifth place.

With grid positions 6, 11, 14, 21 and 22, the five Mercedes-AMG GT3s were facing a difficult task in Saturday’s first race in the super sports car league. After a turbulent start with many collisions, the two Mercedes-AMG GT3 of the MANN-FILTER Team HTP Motorsport with starting numbers 47 and 48 established themselves in the top ten. For the Götz/Pommer duo in particular, the goal was to make it to the finish unscathed and to score as many championship points as possible compared to their rivals. After one hour of racing, they not only scored the best result of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 by finishing sixth, but also moved up into the lead of the drivers’ standings with a margin of seven points. Their teammates Buhk/Dontje were unlucky as they spun in an attempt to overtake while in a promising position in the race. This prevented them from scoring another top ten result. From 21st place on the grid, Raffaele Marciello and Patrick Assenheimer showed good progress that saw them finish in 13th place.

In qualifying on Sunday morning, things went considerably better: Mercedes-AMG Driver Maximilian Buhk placed the #48 Mercedes-AMG GT3 on the front row of the grid by qualifying in second position. Marciello and Götz also managed to secure good grid positions with fifth and seventh place. After the rolling start had to be repeated, the Mercedes-AMG drivers showed strong nerves and got themselves into good positions in the battle for the podium slots in third, fourth and fifth place. There were few opportunities for overtaking at the track in Zandvoort, so position changes didn’t occurred until the mandatory pit stops around the halfway point.

Driving the AutoArena Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3, Marciello had the best pit stop. Initially, he had been running behind the two MANN-FILTER Team HTP Motorsport cars and came in for his pit stop two laps later. After the stop, his teammate Patrick Assenheimer rejoined the race in third ahead of his fellow Mercedes-AMG drivers. After that, Assenheimer showed a strong performance, slightly pulled away and closed the gap to second place. After a strong overtaking move, he eventually secured second place. With their fourth-place finish, Maximilian Götz and Markus Pommer also scored valuable points in the second race and, together with Maximilian Buhk and Indy Dontje in fifth, they secured a good team result for the MANN-FILTER Team HTP Motorsport. With this achievement, Marciello/Assenheimer and Buhk/Dontje also scored a 1-2 in the junior classification.