The ADAC GT Masters teams are slowly but surely starting to announce their programmes for the 2019 season.

We already knew back in December, that KÜS Team75 Bernhard would be back, and earlier we have had Audi confirm a lot of cars.

HCB-Rutronik Racing will enter two Audi R8 LMS cars, where one of them will be piloted by Carrie Schreiner and Dennis Marschall.

Schreiner has raced ADAC Formula 4 in the past, but went on to compete in things like Lamborghini Super Trofeo. She already started to work with the team in 2018, where she raced selected DMV races.

Marschall returns to the Audi brand. He raced in the Audi Sport TT Cup, where he took several wins. 2017 was the first time for him to participate in the ADAC GT Masters, but when on to drive for BMW Team Schnitzer in 2018.

Kelvin van der Linde will drive the second R8 for the team. He has been driving for Montaplast by Land-Motorsport for the last few seasons, with his 2018 season being alongside his brother Sheldon. Sheldon has moved on to become a BMW factory driver now, so their ways had to split. The fourth driver for HCB-Rutronik Racing hasn’t been announced yet.

The Montaplast by Land-Motorsport has really stirred up the things. They still race with Audi R8 LMS GT3 cars, and Christopher Mies is still one of the drivers – but everybody else is new to the team. Mies will do his fourth season for the team in ADAC GT Masters.

Mies will share the car with Max Hofer. Hofer drove for Phoenix Racing in 2018, but has made the jump into the white and green car from Niederdreisbach.

The second car will be driven by Dries Vanthoor and Ricardo Feller. Vanthoor drove for the EFP by TECE team in 2018, and has slowly developed into being one of the fastest Audi works drivers in GT3. So other than being younger brother of Porsche factory driver Laurens, he has really proven his own name.

Ricardo Feller made his ADAC GT Masters debut in 2017 for Audi Sport racing academy, before stepping into BWT Mücke Motorsport in 2018. This year will be the third year with the third different team for the Swiss driver. Will it be third time lucky? He certainly can’t complain about his teammate for this season.

Audi Sport has also announced that Mattia Drudi, Christopher Haase, Pierre Kaffer, Frank Stippler, Frederic Vervisch and Markus Winkelhock are likely to run in the ADAC GT Masters – just without the programmes being fully signed off just yet. We know that BWT Mücke Motorsport will return to the series as well, but they haven’t announced if it’s going to be with 1, 2 or 3 cars, nor who the drivers will be.

PROsport Performance announcered back in November, that they would be entering two Aston Martin Vantage GT3, and now it’s been revealed that 2013 Champion Daniel Keilwitz will be one of the four drivers. Keilwitz has raced nine seasons for Callaway Competition, but felt it was the right time for some new experiences.

Maxime Martin will be the new teammate for Keilwitz. The Aston Martin works driver also races in the FIA World Endurance Championship, but the two series don’t clash, so he can do both without any problems. Martin has previously raced one weekend in the ADAC GT Masters, but that’s 10 years ago, at the season finale at Oschersleben – where he won both races with Claudia Hürtgen.

Callaway Competition has revealed the new colours of the car, but haven’t named any drivers yet.

MRS GT-Racing will compete one more year with BMW M6 GT3, that the team first entered in 2018. They have opted to stick with BMW works driver Jens Klingmann, while his co-driver is still unnamed.

Schütz Motorsport will switch to a Mercedes-AMG GT3, but will grab Marvin Dienst back. Dienst drove for the team back in 2016 too, when they ran with Porsche. Dienst and Porsche has been synonymous for the last few seasons, without him being actual works driver. He did things like the FIA WEC and ELMS, racing for the Proton team. So it will be something new for him to race with a front engined car.

The organizers have made some smaller adjustments to the points and success ballast system. Instead of just handing out points to top-10, there will be points for the first 15 cars. They expect more than 30 cars this season, so that gives the teams running 17th a bit more to race for.

The success ballast was previously 30 kg for the winner, but that has been reduced to 20 kg. It’s often seen a car can win on the Saturday, but hardly be in the top-10 on the Sunday, so the new rule will try to remove the big disadvantage a little, to make things even closer.

The ADAC GT Masters 2019 will start on 26-28 April in Oschersleben.