RWT Racing have raced in the ADAC GT Masters since 2013, working closely with Callaway Competition throughout. After four seasons with the Corvette Z06.R GT3, the team switched to its successor for the 2017 season, the C7 GT3 developed by Callaway. Sven Barth and the outfit’s new signing, Maximilian Hackländer, achieved some excellent results, at Spielberg in particular, where they secured second place in Saturday’s race behind fellow Corvette drivers Jules Gounon & Daniel Keilwitz in P1 to achieve the first one-two win for Corvette in the ADAC GT Masters.
“We’ve already seen at Oschersleben and at the Lausitzring that we’re heading in the right direction,” said Barth. “Saturday’s race at the Red Bull Ring was great for us, for sure! We were at times even faster than the Corvette in the lead. That second place was the third podium for our team after winning at the Nürburgring in 2014 and finishing third at the Slovakiaring in the same year. So, we were very pleased with the result.”
In the Trophy category for amateur drivers, Barth had a close-fought battle with his team mate from 2016, Remo Lips, who switched to Nissan in 2017, and with Lamborghini driver Rolf Ineichen. Overall, Barth took three victories in class, at the Lausitzring, at the Red Bull Ring and at the Sachsenring. In the end, he was narrowly beaten by Lips, finishing just 17 points adrift in second place.
Barth & Hackländer drove well in several races but came away empty-handed. “In qualifying at the Lausitzring, I was even a few hundredths of a second faster than Jules Gounon, who went on to win the championship, and took fourth place on the grid. Of course, that was a real feather in my cap. Unfortunately, I then made a mistake in the race and spun into the gravel bed while overtaking Indy Dontje. We dropped down the field as a result. We also had a strong showing in the rain at Zandvoort. We moved up to eighth place from 23rd on the grid until we were forced to retire through no fault of our own following a collision with Nicky Catsburg.”
These races are typical of the way the team’s season went. “Overall, we had hoped to do a bit better with the new car,” says Barth. “Unfortunately, we often had a spot of bad luck. That cost us some good results. “But Barth is thrilled to bits with the new car. “Unlike the previous model, the C7 is far more of a racing car, is much more sure-footed and its aerodynamic efficiency is much better. The car’s performance through the turns has improved tremendously. Callaway have done a superb job.” Barth is also impressed with the way the two teams, Callaway and RWT Racing, have worked closely together. “We were really pleased that Callaway Team Principal Giovanni Ciccone took the time to thank us for our help after his team had won the title.”
RWT Racing have some exciting plans for 2018, as Barth told us: “We’ll have some extremely positive, really exciting news for you soon with regard to 2018, provided we can get everything sorted in the next few days.”
