Farfus heads to a circuit that is close to his heart

Motorsport Arena, or just Oschersleben as the track that will be the venue for round two of the 2014 DTM season is usually called, has a special place in the heart of Augusto Farfus the racing driver. Last year the BMW works driver won here, but his victories on this track in the north-east of Germany go back way before then.

However, as he heads to the track later this week he has his eye very much on the present and not the past: “The new season is up and running. While I can’t pretend coming eighth and only collecting four points is the way I wanted to start my 2014 challenge, the result in Hockenheim with my fellow BMW driver, Marco Wittmann, taking the first win for the new BMW M4 DTM showed we are up there with the front runners.”

“I am glad we are straight back racing again just two weeks later. Oschersleben is a track I really like. It has some great aspects to it and one of my favourites is the first corner, which is a 90-degree left-hander. However, it has also been the scene of some incidents on the first lap of races I have been in.”

Luckily for Augusto he has managed to avoid these incidents and in his FIA World Touring Car Championship days won several of BMW’s 11 victories at the track. “Last season BMW Team RBM did a very good job there, which gave me the win, and I am motivated to go for the same result again in my Castrol EDGE BMW M4 DTM,” he said.

The track is in the Magdeburger Börde region of the country, is 3.696 kilometres long, was opened in 1997, has been on the DTM calendar since 2000 and is notorious for having low grip and being difficult for overtaking. However, there is one big difference to last year as it was then the eighth and not the second round of the series.

The first time the DTM cars head out onto the track will be on Friday afternoon for the roll out from 16.00 to 16.35. On Saturday free practice is from 09.55 to 11.25 and qualifying from 15.10 to 16.00. On Sunday at 13.30 the cars will be set off on the green flag lap for the 51-lap race.

However, Augusto has not had to wait the full two weeks to drive a BMW on a racetrack. Last week he has been in Portimão (PT) where BMW has been launching the BMW M4 Coupé and BMW M3 Sedan to the media. Augusto and his fellow BMW DTM drivers were given the task of showing the media how to drive these cars at the limit on a racetrack.

For further information on Augusto Farfus, please visit his website at www.farfus.com. There you will find all news and background information on the racing driver from Curitiba.