Maximilian, at the Hungaroring, you and your team-mate Franck Perera narrowly missed out on the podium in the qualifying race. In the end, though, you scored enough points to assert your lead in the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup. How would you sum up the race weekend?
Maximilian Buhk: Firstly, we managed to qualify in the Top Three, which was a positive. Unfortunately, I got caught napping at the start of the first race, but thanks to our strategy, we ultimately finished fourth. In the main race on Sunday, we then got off to a great start, moving up from fourth place to third. On the pit stop, though, we unfortunately lost some time, which cost us a podium spot. But with our Mercedes-AMG GT3, we had a very fast car in that race, one which would have been good enough to get us onto the podium. We’re obviously delighted to be top of the Sprint Cup drivers’ championship standings and will be going into the final weekend fully motivated.
That takes place in mid-September at the Nürburgring. What are your expectations for the race weekend?
Maximilian Buhk: The car that is out ahead at the end of the Nürburgring weekend is the one that will win the championship. In the Sprint class, the teams at the top of the table are bunched so close together that it could be almost anyone from the Top Six. This will obviously make the racing at the Nürburgring extremely exciting for the fans. Our target for the Nürburgring is unambiguous: we intend to wrap up the title. After that, we’d like to win the Endurance Cup and the overall championship on the final weekend in Barcelona. With a deficit of 28 points on the leaders in the championship, that’s going to be an extremely tough call, but who knows, maybe we can still do it.
What preparations are you making for the decisive phase of the season?
Maximilian Buhk: No special preparations as such. We know what our objective is and what we need to do to achieve it. We have all the prerequisites for this, not least with our perfectly set-up cars, but also with our knowledge of the opposition and the special characteristics of the circuit. As for me personally, I’m off on a short break to recharge my batteries. I’ll be going through my training routine before the tension starts to build up ahead of the races at the Nürburgring and before we hammer out the final tactical points with the team.
