It was the ADAC GT Masters „home“ raceweekend for Senkyr Motorsport from city of Brno so it was no doubt that whole team wants to gain best possible result.
“ This circuit is very close to the Czech border and we organize the drift trainings and trackdays quite often here. We knew that Czech fans wants to see us and also our partners. So the target of the weekend wasn’t nothing less than top ten and points,” said after the second race team boss Robert Senkyr.
Experienced newcomer Markus Palttala was the big boost for the team so everyone wanted to get in maximum. Weather affected the race weekend a little bit. Friday’s practices were held at a wet track so Lennart Marioneck started the Saturday’s qualifying with new setup without any testing before. “Friday’s rain meant for us that all the data and work of our engineering will be saved for the future and also that we have to start from zero in the qualifying. It wasn’t ideal but it was the same for the all teams. Lennart was very fast in the qualifying 1 being in top 10 for the most of time at the drying track. But about three minutes to the end he went off the track and was stuck in the gravel. The track was drying out very fast in the last two laps and Lennart could only watch how he was falling down the order. Both drivers were really great in the 60 minutes race than and we finished the race on the promising twelfth place,” said Robert Senkyr about Saturday.
The ADAC GT Masters management chose to revise the race format for the Sachsenring race. Friday was only the free practice day and both qualifyings usually held on the Friday afternoon were on the schedule on Saturday’s and Sunday’s morning. Palttala with Marioneck took the eleventh place with their BMW Z4 GT3 on Sunday. They were only 4,5 seconds behind the top ten finish.
Robert Šenkýř: “It was a great ride today. At the beginning we were stuck behind the Nissans which were slower so it cost Markus some time. Then a superfast pitstop and battle with yesterday’s winners Hürtgen/Alzen with Schubert Z4. It’s fast and cruel but that’s the way we like it. We are still learning. P11 is the best result for us. If we hadn’t the qualifying troubles we could be even better. We had a little bit bad luck with ABS failure in first fast lap and with the red flag afterthat. With the weared tyres and the traffic at the end there was no chance to improve the time any more.I want to thank everyone in the team for the hard work. Points were really close. We will get them next time!”
Markus Paltala: “I’m unhappy that we did not score points, but I’m very happy with the team and the progress we made this weekend. Friday being wet really hurt us bad and since we were catching. In this kind of tight championship you need to have all details in place to be on top. The potential is there, that’s for sure. Thanks for everyone in the team and my teammate Lenny for a great job. Today’s race pace was good, right in between the two Schubert cars that finished 1-2 yesterday.”
Lennart Marioneck: “Overall I think we can be happy with P11 after start from P18. We were last on the start of the race, I think P11 is ok but overall I was hoping for good top ten result which didn’t happen. So I must say that I’m dissapointed. I hope we can do better in next races.”
