Montaplast by Land-Motorsport will once again enter the ADAC GT Masters with two cars.
We already knew that two weeks ago, when the official entry list was revealed.
While they will continue in the well known green and white Audi R8 LMS cars, they have done a big shake-up on the driver side for 2018.
Christopher Mies is the only guy to return to the team for ADAC GT Masters, in which will be his third season with the team. They won the Championship together in 2015 alongside Connor De Phillippi, who has become a BMW works driver.
Mies will be partnering Alessio Picariello. Despite the Italian sounding name, the 24 year-old driver was born in Belgium, but he has an Italian father. Alessio Picariello won the ADAC Formula Master in 2013, which was the predecessor to the ADAC Formula 4. He has done plenty of racing in an Audi R8 LMS in both Europe and Asia since then. He won the 2017 Audi R8 LMS Cup in Asia, but also did one weekend in the ADAC GT Masters with the BWT Mücke Motorsport team. He knows the majority of the tracks, so Mies and Picariello can be a very successful paring this year.
Photo: JJ Media
The other car won’t just be a pairing, but a pair of brothers. Kelvin van der Linde will be sharing the car with his three years younger brother Sheldon. The two paired up at Montaplast by Land-Motorsport during the Daytona 24 Hours in January this year, but they had a weekend together too in the ADAC GT Masters 2017 for the Aust Motorsport team.
Kelvin won the GT Masters 2014, while Sheldon finished third in the ADAC TCR Germany in 2017. Both brothers are ultra fast, so Mies/Picariello can’t relax too much and expect to be the leading guys at the team, from the get go.
The ADAC GT Masters have their collective media and test day in just over one months time at Oschersleben, before the season will get off to it’s real start on 13-15 April at the same track. There will be a total of 7 weekends before the 2018 Champions will be crowned at Hockenheim in September.
