Report & Gallery: The 20th edition of the ADAC Hockenheim Historic-Jim Clark Revival

Submitted by Marcel Hundscheid on May 22, 2025

By Marcel Hundscheid

The 20th edition of the ADAC Hockenheim Historic – Jim Clark Revival attracted an impressive 45,000 fans to the Hockenheimring during the second weekend of May, 2025. A new visitor record to go along with perfect weather conditions and a large and diverse program. The focus for this year was on 1965, the most important season of Clark’s career. In addition to winning the Formula 1 World Championship, he also took several victories in the British and French F2 Championships.

At the same time, attention was paid to the recent passing of Jochen Mass, a motorsport icon who, in addition to his career in Formula 1, long-distance racing and touring cars, was also active in historic motorsport until recently. Motorsport Retro was present to cover all the action for you.

This year Masters Historic Racing was back with the Racing Legends for F1 cars, the Endurance Legends and the combined grid of Gentlemen Drivers and Touringcars. The program also included the Touringcars Golden Era, DRM Revival, BOSS GP Series, FIA Lurani Trophy and the ADAC Graf Berge von Trips Pokal.

The first race of the Touringcars Golden Era on Saturday was convincingly won by the mighty Audi 200 Quattro of Anton Werner. Former DTM driver Kris Nissen drove his BMW E30 to second place on the podium, ahead of the BMW E36 STW of Yannick Trautwein. Unfortunately, bad luck struck during the second race on Sunday. An electronic problem prevented Werner from extending his success from Saturday and even forced him to retire his car prematurely.

Brand colleague and former world champion in touring cars Altfrid Heger was left with free reign and drove unchallenged to victory. The battle for second place was again between Nissen and Trautwein. In the heat of the battle, Trautwein spun after having passed Nissen earlier. In this way, second place went to Nissen again.

Over 30 historic Formula 3, Formula Ford and Sports 2000 were at the start of the ADAC Graf Berge von Trips Pokal. In the first race on Saturday, the overall victory went to the Brabham BT36 of Luciano Arnold, the only Formula 2 car in the field. The Swiss drove alone and crossed the finish line first after twenty minutes of racing with a lead of more than half a minute on the Dallara F386 of Volker Böhm.

Arnold also dictated the pace during the second race on Sunday until a full course yellow suddenly reset the scenario. One minute before the finish flag was waved, the lights turned green again. Having to navigate backmarkers, the top three was thrown into chaos and Böhm, who was behind Arnold at that moment, was better able to fight his way through the backmarkers and took the overall victory.

Nearly 20 iconic Formula 1 cars from the seventies and eighties filled the starting grid at Hockenheim, where fans could enjoy the real F1 sound produced by the legendary Cosworth engines. Matthew Wrigley drove his Tyrrell 011 to a convincing victory, ahead of brand mate Jamie Constable. The second race was a lot more chaotic. Warren Briggs took the lead at the start in his McLaren, although he was overtaken by Christophe d’Ansembourg in his Williams in the Spitzkehre.

The Belgian count was allowed to enjoy the lead in the race for one lap before he was relegated to second place by Jamie Constable at exactly the same spot. When entering the Motodrom, d’Ansembourg made a mistake and ended up in the gravel trap. After the reset, it was Constable, Briggs and Cantillon who occupied the top three. Two more retirements led to two more restarts, after which the race management stopped the race with the red flag.

The grid of the Masters Endurance Legends was unfortunately less well populated, but the action on the track made up for a lot. Jamie Constable showed in both races that he had the most in the tank and steered his Zytek 04S to a convincing victory twice.

The oldest cars of the weekend were the single seaters of the Historic Grand Prix Car Association, who brought over thirty-one cars onto the asphalt. The grids on Saturday were divided into one for single-seaters with a front-mounted engine and one for cars in which the engine was located behind the driver. Local hero Rüdiger Friedrichs won the Saturday race for rear-engined Grand Prix cars in a Cooper T53. The victory in the front-engined cars went to Ewen Sergison in a Lotus 16. On Sunday, both grids were merged, with Friedrichs taking the overall victory.

The FIA Lurani Trophy could of course not be missed and was good for more than thirty entries. Three-time Le Mans winner Marco Werner took the win on Saturday, but unfortunately the likeable German had to park his car on the side of the road due to bad luck on Sunday. Manfredo Rossi di Montelera was the first to cross the finish line on Sunday.

The very large field of touring cars entered in the touring cars golden era was split into two grids, one for the touring cars and another grid for the cars of the DRM Revival. The number of entered group 5 cars was unfortunately disappointing this year. For example, the Zakspeed Ford Capri Turbo Gr.5 only appeared at the start during the qualification on Friday.

The battle during both races on Saturday and Sunday became a Porsche affair. On Saturday and Sunday Daniel Schrey dominated the race with his bright yellow Porsche 935 K3. The German had no opposition from anyone and finished on Saturday almost nineteen seconds ahead of the Porsche 930 turbo of Manfredo Rossi di Montelera. On Sunday the Martini heir dropped out after one lap, which meant that second place went to the Porsche 934/5 of Manfred Niederhof, almost forty-five seconds behind the mighty 935 K3 of Daniel Schrey.

The fastest cars of the weekend were again the single-seaters of the BOSS GP Series. Ingo Gerstl proved unassailable and drove his Toro Rosso STR1 twice to victory as he was the fastest driver around the Hockenheimring.

The Masters from England brought the combined grid of Gentlemen Drivers and Pre-66 Touring Cars to the start. Local hero Rüdiger Friedrichs took his first ever Gentlemen Drivers victory with AC Cobra after a thrilling duel with the Lotus 15 of Jakob Viggo Holstein and Horatio Fitz-Simon.

The organisation of the 20th edition of the ADAC Hockenheim Historic-Jim Clark Revival could look back with more than satisfaction on a very successful weekend with various superlatives. The date for the 21st edition has already been set, from 8 to 10 May 2026. We are already looking forward to it!