The weather is still good and warm across most of the continent, but holidays are over, and the GT Open community is ready to resume racing. It will do so in the mid-September weekend at the Hockenheimring, the tradition-rich and fast track in the Baden-Württemberg forest. With its fast straights, its chicanes and some very characteristic sections such as the Ostkurve and the Motodrom, the XXX German track is anything but easy.
The setting is perfect to see a new chapter in the exciting battles for the titles, in what is the sixth round of the season, with Monza and Barcelona forming the final and decisive stretch. Some interesting novelties are to be seen in Germany, where 27 cars will be in action.
PRO: THE FOUR-WAY BATTLE CONTINUES
It’s still a four-way fight for the Overall honours, with four different teams and car brands involved. Thanks to a great campaign so far, which has seen them take four race wins, the ‘two Toms’, Emson and Lebbon are leading the standings in the Elite Motorsport Ferrari 296. The duo of young Brits has a six-point advantage over the Team Motopark Mercedes of Christian Mansell and Maxi Götz, who have only one win (although in the double-counting race at Spa) but four second-place finishes, with consistency being their motto.
Third in contention is the surprise of the year, the ZRS Motorsport Porsche of Pietro Armanni and Alex Fontana, who have netted three wins and are 22 points from the top. Four points behind is Zac Meakin, in the Greystone GT McLaren shared with Dean Macdonald, with one race win under their belt.
With 11 cars at the start, the Pro category is this time the best-represented and offers many more outfits to be watched closely, starting from the Villorba Corse Lamborghini of young guns Leonardo Moncini and Rodrigo Testa, who are fifth in the standings and very eager to take their maiden win.
AF Corse is also a force in this class with its two Ferraris entrusted to Rafael Durán-Tommaso Mosca and Yaroslav Veselaho-Lorenzo Ferrari.
Motopark has two other cars in the class, as regulars Marcelo Ramírez-Dominik Baumann are joined this time, in a third Mercedes, by former F1 driver Nikita Mazepin and Lin Hodenius, both making their debut in the series. Greystone GT is also fielding a third car, for McKenzy Cresswell, already seen last year, and Spain’s Alejandro Geppert, while the other new car in the class is the Ferrari of Double TT Racing, with Italy’s Leonardo Colavita and Belgium’s Gilles Renmans at the wheel.
PRO-AM: ALSO AN AFFAIR OF FOUR
Interestingly, the situation is quite similar at the top of the fiercely contested Pro-Am class: four different car brands in the top-4 and a very similar points situation. Leading the pack is Alexander Fach, the young Swiss at the wheel of the Fach Auto Tech Porsche, with Alexander Schwarzer again sharing the wheel in this final stretch of the season. Fach, who has won four races, has a five-point advantage on Charles Bateman, here associated again with Jonny Adam in the Blackthorn Aston Martin Vantage. With a double win at Paul Ricard in the last round, the Brit has superbly re-launched his title bid.
Third in contention is the Olimp Racing Ferrari of Marcin Jedlinski and Karol Basz, with the consistent Polish duo fifteen points from the top, while six points further back is another champion of consistency, the Audi R8 LMS of ISR Racing and Czech duo Libor Milota-Filip Salaquarda.
Always serious candidates to victory are Swiss duo Dexter Müller-Yannick Mettler, in the SPS Mercedes, and French tandem Michaël Blanchemain-Jim Pla, in the Saintéloc Racing Audi. McLaren is represented in the class with two cars, the Greystone GT one entrusted to Andrey Borodin-Ollie Webb and the Trackfocused one of James and Dean Kell, while Into Africa Racing by Dragon enters the sole Ferrari in the class, for Xolile Letlaka and Axcil Jefferies.
AM: LEWANDOWSKI JR HOLDS THE FORT
Livelier than ever this year, the Am class is the one that sees the clearest situation at the top of the standings at this moment. Adrian Lewandowski, in the Baron Motorsport Ferrari, is the man at the helm of the standings, ten points ahead of his teammate and father Andrzej, who had to miss a round and is therefore not on equal points.
The first real rival for the Pole is the Brazilian duo in the AF Corse Ferrari, Marcelo Hahn and Galid Osman, who are 13 points behind the lead but have the most class wins, three, up to now. In contention for the title is also Joel Monegro, the Dominican driver of the Fach Auto Tech Porsche, now paired with Lukas Wolf for the remainder of the season.
Class regulars are Stanislaw Jedlinski-Kristian Korzeniowski in the Olimp Racing Ferrari and the two solo drivers, Alfredo Hernández in the Grupo Prom RT Mercedes, and Seweryn Mazur in the Sendom Racing Lamborghini.
Joining the party at Hockenheim and for the rest of the season, with a view to a full campaign in 2027, is Förch Racing by Atlas Ward, the well-known Polish team, which enters a Porsche for Jakub Dwernicki and Tomasz Magdziarz.