The person in charge of starring in this curious sports anecdote is Hubert haupt52-year-old pilot who has competed mainly as a ‘gentleman’ or amateur since 2013, but who once enjoyed a professional career with two distinct steps through the DTM. Today he is the owner of Team HRT, the newly minted formation that took over the structure of the successful Black Falcon team last year, and one of the five Mercedes-AMG client teams in the new GT3 stage, having made its DTM debut with good sense in the inaugural round of Monza . This week it was confirmed that, in the month of August, Haupt himself will get behind the wheel of a third car.
The Mercedes-AMG GT3 that Haupt will drive at the Nürburgring, with his “iconic” sponsorship / @ DTM
It will at the Nürburgring, whose races will take place on the weekend of August 22, and that will be the fourth ‘meeting’ of the season after the Lausitz and Zolder rounds have been held. There he will join his regular drivers, Vincent Abril and Maximilian Götz, who occupy fourth and sixth positions respectively after taking the podium in the first Italian race. Haupt’s re-debut occurs thirty years after his first participation in 1991, at the wheel of an Audi V8 quattro. Teaming up with reigning champion Hans-Joachim Stuck, and replacing rally legend Walter Röhrl, Haupt did not have a good experience, finishing 16th in the first season with a podium, and scoring just one point in 1992 before losing his place. mid-season.
Following his failed forays into Indy Lights and Porsche Supercup, a five-year hiatus, and his return to GTs in 1999, Haupt returned to the DTM in 2001 as an Opel driver together with the current BTCC champion, Alain Menu. With dated 2000 units exacerbating the Astra’s speed problems, Haupt only managed to score points in one race and headed out the back door again, spending his subsequent run through Mini Challenge and GT Cups until the past decade became a usual Black Falcon, being on several occasions runner-up of the GT World Challenge Europe in the amateur Silver Cup.
And what is it that motivates Haupt to undertake this endeavor? «From a sporting point of view, the opportunity to prove myself in this highly competitive environment with young professionals is obviously tempting», Assures the owner-pilot. “We are well prepared and we believe that we can achieve a good result. It’s another dream come true for me: to have my own team, to participate in the DTM, and now to be back behind the wheel in a category that I have so many memories of. As a competitor, you can hardly imagine anything better »