Farfus returns to the podium with second in Austria

“This second place feels like a victory for me”, commented Augusto Farfus on Sunday in Austria, which turned out to be a historic day for BMW. It celebrated its first 1-2-3-4 after its return to DTM in 2012 – and Augusto celebrated his return to the podium.

 

The Brazilian finished second in his Castrol EDGE BMW M4 DTM behind winner Marco Wittmann, who extended his overall lead in the drivers’ championship to 39 points. Timo Glock was third on the podium, while Martin Tomczyk completed the top four in another BMW M4 DTM.

 

Augusto and his BMW Team RBM had high expectations for this sixth race of the 2014 DTM season. Starting from fourth on the grid with the softer option tyres, the driver from Curitiba clearly set his sights on the podium. As the lights went off, he improved to third immediately and soon after he overtook Glock to take second. From then on he set a series of fastest lap times to close the gap to leader Robert Wickens. For several laps, Augusto and Wickens fought a breath-taking wheel-to-wheel battle. “It was exciting, I enjoyed it,” was Augusto's comment about the fight in the first half of the race. He was close to taking the lead several times, but Wickens was able to defend the top spot.

 

After 18 laps, Augusto came into the pits for the mandatory stop and changed to the harder prime tyres. After the stop the fight with Wickens continued, but this time Augusto had the upper hand and overtook the Canadian. But soon he faced another rival - Jamie Green took the lead in front of Augusto when the Brit returned to the track after his stop. The race continued to be dramatic, as Green (infringement of the option tyre regulations) and Wickens (unsafe release) got drive-through penalties. So Augusto finally took the lead. However, when points leader and BMW colleague Marco Wittmann appeared in his rear mirror and tried to overtake, Augusto did not fight too much to defend his position. So he crossed the line in second after 47 laps of intensive racing.

 

“It is just good to be back on the podium and to see that we brought the car back into the sweet spot,” Augusto summed up with a big smile. “During the entire weekend I had one of the strongest paces. Yesterday in qualifying I was missing a little bit in Q3 to put the car on pole, but today I proved that the car was fast enough. I had the pace to win the race and that is what counts. P2 is a great result. So thanks to BMW Team RBM, because we always keep pushing. We knew that we had the pace and the skills to be up front and today the result has confirmed that.”

 

In the overall rankings,  Augusto is ninth with 33 points. The seventh round of the 2014 DTM season will be held on 17th August at the Nürburgring in Germany.