In time for Sunday’s 60-minute race, Augusto Farfus and BMW Team MTEK made a huge step forward in setting up the Shell BMW M4 DTM – but this did not prevent the driver from Curitiba leaving the Hungaroring empty handed. It was simply bad luck that brought his Sunday race at the racetrack near Budapest to an early end. After only a few laps he had to return to the garage with a water leak.
Augusto, the team and BMW analysed everything in depth after the difficult Saturday and qualifying 14th for Sunday’s race. He set his sights on making up positions during the race and collecting more points. The Brazilian was optimistic, not only because of the performance of his Shell BMW M4 DTM, but also because of the fact that all the BMWs had improved in comparison to Saturday. The pace was back. The start was hectic, with several collisions at the very front. Augusto came safely through the first corners, but soon noticed that something was wrong with the car. After two laps he returned to the BMW Team MTEK garage and had to retire.
“My start was normal, but then I saw some carbon parts flying around,” Augusto reported. “Something hit the radiator and, as a result, I had a water leak. Once again, we were missing the necessary luck.”
Summing up the weekend he said: “All the weekends are pretty similar. We start well on Friday, but we are not always able to make the right changes for Saturday. Then on Sunday, we head in the right direction again. Today again we had a good race set-up, but the performance also comes a little but too late. Now we will focus on the season finale in Hockenheim. It is a track where it went well for us at the beginning of the season. So the potential is there to have a good result and to finish the season on a high.”
The highest-placed BMW driver was Marco Wittmann, who finished fourth despite the fact that he was hit by several cars directly after the start. With this result, Wittmann extended the overall lead in the drivers’ championship to 26 points.
The finale of the 2016 DTM season will be held on 15th and 16th October at the Hockenheimring.
