Hockenheimring
Audi Sport TT Cup
20. June 2016

Yannik Brandt’s strong Oschersleben-weekend

ADAC Formula 4 championship points within reach

After the season kick-off in April, the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben was venue of a race of the ADAC Formula 4 for the second time. Rookie Yannik Brandt showed a strong performance and achieved his best result so far.

The 15-year-old did not have good memories of Oschersleben. At the season kick-off, the youngster was involved in a collision and had to end his premiere prematurely. The last racing weekend went considerably better. At the fourth event of the ADAC Formula 4, the German already started successfully at the free trainings. With times among the top ten, he raised hopes and was accordingly confident: “It’s obvious that I’ve continued to work hard since the Lausitzring and I’m really happy about this development. Everything’s going really well right now.”

Unfortunately the weather in the Magdeburger Boerde changed during qualifying. Heavy rain even caused a temporary break of the training. In the end, Yannik was only 13th of his group and stayed far behind his own expectations. “Now I’m going to start into the first two races from 26th and 24th places – I had really expected something else. Due to the heavy rain and the break it was hard to get into the right rhythm”, the young driver from the Austrian Lechner Racing Team complained.

The sun came back for the first ranked race on Saturday evening and Yannik drove around the 3.696m long track in the Magdeburger Boerde highly motivated. After 30 thrilling racing minutes, peppered with numerous overtaking maneuvers, he came in on the strong 15th place and gained more points on the rookie list of rankings. “I’m still a little upset about qualifying. I drove top ten times again but unfortunately it’s hard to gain lots of positions among this narrow field”, the Forch resident summed up.

Things went similarly during the second race on Sunday. This time, the rookie drove forward to 18th place. The last race of the weekend was chaotic then. Yannik didn’t have any problems at the start, but then the race was interrupted due to further collisions. After the restart and another safety car phase there wasn’t much time left to drive forward. In the end, he just barely missed placing among the top ten by coming in 12th. As the fifth-best rookie, he still gained points and is now going into his summer-break positively: “After lots of bad luck this has been a really positive weekend for us. The teamwork was really fun again. We’re on the right track and are continuously getting better. Now I’m looking forward to the Red-Bull-Ring, the track is really challenging and a lot of fun to drive.”

Until then Yannik is going to take a five week break. Then, the high-speed young talent school of the ADAC is going into its second half of the season in Spielberg.