No racing luck for Fabian Schiller on the British island
19. Mai 2017 Back to overview »

Last weekend Fabian Schiller had to travel home from Great Britain without a countable result. In an “English week”, the Troisdorf resident first travelled to the second of five sprint races of the Blancpain GT Series in Brands Hatch and then on to Silverstone, where a long-distance race of the popular sports car series took place only a few days later. The 19-year-old’s strong performance on the track wasn’t rewarded in the end though, because several penalties by the sports commissioners threw the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of the HTP Motorsport team always so far back that coming in on the cup ranks was made impossible.

Fabian Schiller travelled to Great Britain on the first weekend of May very optimistically, because Brands Hatch in the English county Kent as well as the Grand Prix track of Silverstone are said to be very smooth tracks, which would suit the Mercedes race car really well. Schiller and his team mate Jules Szymkowiak impressively proved this in the first free training, because with a time of only 1:24,762 minutes for the 3,703km long track, the German-Dutch duo drove the second-fastest lap of the overall 33 drivers. Their performance at qualifying would have been enough for a front starting position as well, but due to a misunderstanding between the team and race control Schiller and Szymkowiak sat in their vehicle in the wrong order. The penalty for this was extreme, because the Mercedes with start number 85 was put back all the way to the end of the starting grid.

The young drivers were not flustered by this though, showed a sensational performance during the hour-long qualifying race on Sunday afternoon and drove forward from 31st to 16th position. Schiller and Szymkowiak finished the following main race (also 60 minutes) on the fourth place, but the joy about the successful catching-up race didn’t last long. Due to causing a collision with an opponent, race control gave the HTP Mercedes 30 penalty-seconds afterwards, which threw them back to 17th place and also cost them the victory at the Silver Cup, a special competition for young drivers without professional status.

Only five days later things went on at the Formula 1 track of Silverstone, but Fabian Schiller’s streak of bad luck continued at the “Home of British Motor Racing” as well. After a suboptimal qualifying, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 that the reigning champion of the Renault Sport Trophy shared with Austrian Dominik Baumann and Swede Edward Sandström this time was only on 17th starting position. Just like a week before, Schiller fought his way forward continuously and was already on 11th position at the first mandatory pit stop. But then fate struck mercilessly. First, the trio received a pit-lane passage ban due to alleged “leaving of the starting position”. Schiller served this against orders during a safety car phase and therefore immediately received a second “drive-through penalty”. To make matters worse, a third penalty followed because Sandström drove past the red light at the pit lane exit at the beginning of his stint. Therefore, among the high-class field of participants of 55 GT3-vehicles, only the disappointing 37th place stood at the end.

„To be honest, words fail me and I can’t describe what we’ve been through here”, a frustrated Fabian Schiller said afterwards. “Our car drove fantastically, we were confident to be the fastest drivers on the track and didn’t give up despite all the penalties. But the fact that after the season kick-off in Italy where we were already chiseled out of a possible place on the podium we’ve now been thrown back so far again is really disappointing. I will try to leave this behind me as quickly as possible and finally gain points again at the next sprint race in Belgian Zolder.”

Text: F. Wagner / Schiller Motorsport – Fotos: Blancpain GT Series