Augusto Farfus thoroughly enjoyed his Spa 24 Hours despite the fact the car he was sharing with Belgium’s Maxime Martin and Germany’s Dirk Werner retired with seven hours to go while leading the iconic event. It was a technical problem that caused the BMW Z4 GT3’s engine to cease, but BMW Sports Trophy Team Marc VDS still has to identify the actual reason.
The dream result for the Brazilian would have been a win and then he could have been a very big part of the history of the BMW Z4 GT3, as he explained: “I was in the BMW Z4 GT3 for its first 24 hour race victory in Dubai in 2011, and I thought it would be good to also win the last 24 hour race in this car. At one point in the race I felt like that was possible, because the car was running well, we had built up the pace, then in the morning we started pushing to stretch the gap and everything was going as planned. It would have been fantastic, as the Z4 has been an extremely successful car and I think there would have been no better goodbye to 24-hour racing than to take the victory here in Spa.”
However, it was not all bad news for the driver from Curitiba and the Belgium team he was racing with this weekend. The number 45 may have retired after 399 laps, but the number 46 sister car won in the hands of fellow BMW works driver Lucas Luhr, Nick Catsburg and Markus Palttala: “I am very proud to have been part of this weekend and it is super that the number 46 car has won. Congratulations to Lucas, Nick and Markus, as well as the entire tream, who did a great job and deserved this result. It has been a pleasure to work with this great group of guys at Marc VDS. They did a great job on the strategy and the problem we had was out of our control. It is in many ways sad, especially because there was a long period of preparation behind us, but we all go home proud of what we have done.”
Now it is back to what could be called his ‘day job’ as next weekend Augusto will be with BMW Team RBM at the Red Bull Ring in Austria for rounds nine and ten of the DTM: “Now I have to change my focus for what comes next. I go home for three days to recover and will be back in my Shell BMW M4 DTM on Friday for the start of the next DTM weekend.”
