The driver announcements for the ADAC GT Masters 2020 keep coming in at a high rate.
GRT Grasser Racing Team has announced Clemens Schmid as the teammate to Niels Langrange in the green Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo #19. Schmid has previously raced in the ADAC GT Masters, but most recently did so in a Mercedes. He is a bit of a multi-brand talent, having raced Porsche, Bentley and Audi in the past too, but this will be his first time in a Lambo.
Aust Motorsport returns with two Audi R8 LMS cars. Maximilian Hackländer and Nikolaj Rogivue have already been announced for one of the cars, while the seats are still empty in the other car. Rogivue drove for BWT Mücke Motorsport last year, but there are no longer a spot for him there, with the team cutting down to two cars only. Hackländer on the other hand has been racing for Aust for the previous two seasons, so he knows everything about the team. Luckily Rogivue carried his Audi experience with him from Mücke Motorsport, so it will hopefully be a smooth transition into the team.
EFP Car Collection will also enter two Audi cars this year. Elia Erhart and Pierre Kaffer will once again share one of the cars, while Florian Spengler will be joined by none other than Markus Winkelhock. Winkelhock was also racing for Mücke Motorsport last year, but the works driver makes a switch to EFP now. Erhart and Kaffer has won a single race back in 2018, but has often been involve in carnage in the midfield. Spengler will start his third season for the team, just like Erhart, but with a 7th position as his best race result so far. Being paired up with Winkelhock, it absolutely has to be improved, so that might be the thinking behind the move of borrowing Winkelhock from Audi Sport.
Last but not least, there will be a return of Schubert Motorsport to the ADAC GT Masters. The BMW team hasn’t raced in the series since 2018, and that was even with a Honda NSX GT3, which they never really got a grip of. They enter two quite serious line-ups with Joel Eriksson and Aidan Read sharing car #9, while Henric Skoog, Erik Johansson and Nick Yelloly will race in car #10. Eriksson was a BMW factory driver for a couple of years, including two seasons of DTM, but he was released at the end of last year. That hasn’t made him turn his back on BMW, and with Read alongside him, who has ADAC GT Masters experience from Schütz Motorsport in Mercedes-Benz last year, the pairing will be a really strong one. Johansson is a works driver at BMW, and has GT3 experience from Italy. He will be joined by his fellow Swede Skoog in the car at Oschersleben, Zandvoort and Sachsenring, while works-teammate Yelloly will race alongside him in Most, Red Bull Ring, Nürburgring and Hockenheim. It’s not ideal with a driver swap mid-season, plus none of them have raced ADAC GT Masters before. Both Skoog and Yelloly have however raced in Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland, so they do have knowledge from most of the tracks.
The ADAC GT Masters 2020 starts on 25-26 April in Oschersleben.