After claiming his best result of the season so far in yesterday’s sprint race at the Norisring, Augusto Farfus had to retire early in today’s 60-minute race. The BMW Team RBM driver was the victim of a first corner incident, which brought his race to an early end.
In the second qualifying this morning, the Brazilian from Curitiba qualified 12th on the grid, being third best BMW driver behind pole-setter Bruno Spengler and Maxime Martin in ninth. For the race, Farfus aimed to work his way towards the front and to score a strong result in the points. However, he was put out of contention early on.
After the start, when the field of 24 cars went through the first hairpin of the narrow street circuit, several cars collided and Farfus’ Shell BMW M4 DTM was hit. The car was so badly damaged that Farfus had to return to the pits and retire.
“This was a very short appearance for me this Sunday,” a disappointed Farfus commented. “When I turned into the first corner I got a massive hit from the side. Some people seem to think that they have to decide the race in the first corner and are over-ambitious. I am very disappointed that my race was over after just a few seconds. My team and I had been pretty confident before the start. We had the feeling that we could do a strong race. This makes our retirement even more painful. But when the car is so badly damaged you can’t continue to race. Now I hope for more luck at Zandvoort. Congratulations to Bruno for his podium. Our aim is also to achieve that again soon.” Bruno Spengler finished third, claiming the first podium of the season for BMW.
In the Drivers’ championship, Farfus is 19th with five points. The fourth round of the 2015 DTM season will be held at Dutch Zandvoort on 11th and 12th July.
