Timo Bernhard and Kevin Estre have been stripped of their victory in race one of the ADAC GT Masters weekend at the Sachsenring.

The KUS Team75 Bernhard Porsche 911 GT3 R was found to be “in breach of the technical regulations” after Bernhard qualified it on pole for the 60-minute race.

That would have sent it to the back of the grid, but an appeal from the team allowed Bernhard to start from pole before Estre went on to take the checkered flag.

The team’s appeal was discussed in a hearing on Monday, which concluded that the Porsche was not in compliance with the regulations, resulting in its disqualification.

Consequently, the Montaplast by Land-Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT3 of Kelvin and Sheldon van der Linde inherits the win, while the Zakspeed Mercedes AMG GT3 driven by Kim Luis Schramm and Nikolai Sylvest moves up to second.

HTP Motorsport’s Maximilian Buhk and Indy Dontje will now be classified fourth with their Mercedes, ahead of the BWT Muecke Audi of Stefan Muecke and Jeffrey Schmidt.

The ruling has tightened up the drivers’ championship with one round to go.

It means the Van der Linde brothers now sit third in the drivers’ standings, having closed the gap to the No. 99 Precote Herberth Motorsport Porsche and No. 47 HTP Motorsport Mercedes crews which both failed to finish the race.

The Land drivers are now nine points behind HTP’s Maximilian Goetz and Markus Pommer, and 13 points away from series leaders Robert Renauer and Mathieu Jaminet heading into this weekend’s Hockenheim finale.

AMENDED RESULTS: Sachsenring Race 1