Strong and eventful DTM season opener for Farfus at Hockenheim

The 2014 DTM season opening race at Hockenheim turned out to be an eventful afternoon for Augusto Farfus. The driver from Curitiba put in a strong performance in his brand new his Castrol EDGE BMW M4 DTM. In the debut race of his new challenger, Augusto pushed forward from the mid-field. Unfortunately, a collision on the final lap prevented him from finishing in the top six.
After 42 laps, he crossed the finish line in eighth. The historic win went to fellow BMW driver Marco Wittmann, who celebrated the first victory for the BMW M4 DTM in its first ever race and the 60th victory for BMW in the DTM.

According to the new regulations, there is only one mandatory pit stop instead of the two, but still both the hard and the soft tyres have to be used. Because of this the teams have to make a strategy decision about the length of their stints with what tyres and when they opt to pit.

After qualifying had not gone exactly according to plan, Augusto and BMW Team RBM were fired up for the race. From P11 on the grid, there was only one direction for him to go – forward. Augusto did his first stint on the hard tyres. In the early stages of the race, he was able to defend his position against other drivers on soft tyres, who had the advantage of more grip. He was able to hold on until he finally lost some places on laps six and seven to rivals on what is known as the ‘option tyre’. Lying in 13th Augusto pitted after lap 22. Now with the soft tyres on his BMW M4 DTM Augusto’s motto was: “Maximum attack until the chequered flag”.

In the second half of the race, he showed an impressive fight back, working his way up through the field place by place, so by the 42nd and final lap Augusto was sixth. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to finish in this position, as on the final lap he collided with fifth placed Timo Scheider, and both went off track.

“I think Timo took responsibility for the contact, as he came to me afterwards and apologised. It was a racing incident, but I think we could have avoided it, because I was a lot faster and would have taken him anyway in the next corner. But he apologised and that’s it.” As a result, Augusto dropped back two places and crossed the line in eighth.

Overall, Augusto is quite satisfied with today: “The race was pretty okay, considering where we started. We had a good stint with both tyres. The car was very strong, thanks a lot to my team. It is a shame we started to far back and that I lost two places on the final lap. But that is racing. Overall, we did a good job. I am happy for Marco, he really deserves it and was flying the flag for BMW.”

In the drivers’ standings Augusto is eighth on four points. “There is still a long way to go in the championship. It is important to keep scoring and to keep up the fight. Now we are focusing on the next race”, Augusto said.

The second round of the 2014 season will be held in two weeks on 18th May at Oschersleben. Augusto has fond memories of this track, as he has celebrated victories there in the WTCC and the DTM, where he won last year’s Oschersleben race. “Last year we had a strong race as well, so we are looking forward to it and we will try to get another success there”, he said.

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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.