The 24 seats in the 12 Audi R8 LMS GT3 cars in this year’s ADAC GT Masters are slowly filled up.
The latest announcement cam from Team ISR. They will race with two Audi veterans, in the shape of Frank Stippler and Filip Salaquarda. Salaquarda and Stippler have driven together at several occasions, like in the Blancpain GT Series.
ISR is an acronym for Igor Salaquarda Racing. Igor is the father of Filip, but has had prominent names like Daniel Ricciardo, Sam Bird, Sergei Sirotkin and Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi in the team, too. Those names have all been through the Renault World Series 3.5 programme, while the team more recently have been focusing on GT racing.
2018 will be the first for the team in the ADAC GT Masters, but both Frank Stippler and Filip Salaquarda have experience from the 2017 season, where they raced in separate Audis at BWT Mücke Motorsport.
Photo: Gruppe C Photography
YACO Racing returns with the same pairing for the fifth year in a row. Rahel Frey and Philip Geipel start to know each other very well. Just like at ISR, the parent of one of the drivers, is the team owner. Uwe Geipel was a racing driver himself, but started YACO Racing in 2001, racing in the Toyota Yaris Cup. They entered ADAC GT Masters in 2012, first with Chevrolet Camaro GT3, before switching to Audi for 2013, and got Frey along with the car. She is the only current female works driver for Audi Sport.
The team has taken two victories so far in the ADAC GT Masters, but their aim is to win more in 2018.
Phoenix Racing has presented their third out of four drivers for this upcoming season. 18 year old Max Hofer will be racing the red Audi R8 LMS GT3. He will be sharing that car with Philip Ellis, who has previously been presented here on the site. Both drivers have a Audi Sport TT Cup background. Hofer finished 7th in the TT Cup 2016, before going into the ADAC TCR Germany in 2017, finishing 11th in the standings.
ADAC GT Masters will start the testing at the end of March, before the first race of the season is held in Oschersleben on 13-15 April.
