DIFFICULT SATURDAY FOR FARFUS IN MIXED CONDITIONS AT THE NÜRBURGRING
Augusto Farfus was not too happy with today’s qualifying at Germany’s Nürburgring. He missed progressing through to the third and final session and had to settle for 14th. As a result, he will have to tackle the seventh round of the 2014 DTM season from the middle of the grid in his Castrol EDGE BMW M4 DTM. Despite being 14th, Augusto was the third best BMW driver. Only points leader Marco Wittmann qualified for Q3, where he secured pole-position. His team-mate Maxime Martin finished 12th, all the other BMW drivers will have to line up behind the driver from Curitiba.
Today, the Nürburgring confirmed its reputation – that you can only predict one thing, that the conditions will be unpredictable! All day the weather kept changing, it went from rain showers with cloudy skies to even some sun. So in qualifying, Augusto and BMW Team RBM faced mixed conditions. Shortly before the session started it had rained again, but the drying track was still damp in places when the drivers headed out. Augusto qualified comfortably in Q1 to go forward to Q2, but after this second session qualifying was over for him.
“It has been a crazy day”, Augusto reported afterwards. “We had mixed conditions from the morning on. It was wet and dry, and that was also the case in qualifying. It was very difficult to find the right balance for the car. Today I think our car was just not in the right spot, and so it was just not quick enough. Marco has shown that the car can be there, he did an awesome job.”
Now Augusto is looking forward to tomorrow’s race, where he and BMW Team RBM will try to get the best out of his Castrol EDGE BMW M4 DTM. He is clearly setting his sights on finishing in the points, and, if the conditions continue to be as unpredictable as they have been today, anything is possible.
The 49-lap race on the 3.629 kilometre circuit starts tomorrow at 13.30 local time.