The weather was unusual for the Eifel mountains: the sun was shining the entire day, with a cold morning but temperature was up to 20 degrees over the course of the day. In qualifying shortly before lunchtime, Augusto clocked the tenth fastest time. The goal for him and his team, BMW Team RMG, was to build on that base in the race to collect as many points as possible.
Augusto stormed forwards at the start but after the hectic first corners he was back in tenth position. He then improved by a place and moved further up the field when the first drivers came to the pits for their mandatory pit stops. Augusto opted to change his tyres on lap 15 and his BMW Team RMG crew did a fast stop. In his second stint, Augusto had moved up to seventh place and was involved in some tight battles in the points positions. On the final laps, however, he dropped back to ninth place and secured two points.
“I think I had a good start but I did not find the right spot at turn one. Then I really suffered in the first stint of the race. There was no pace”, Augusto reported. “On the second set of tyres, the car came alive, I had a really strong pace and I could really do my race. But unfortunately we had stopped a bit too early and at the end of the race I did not have the tyres to fight anymore. But it’s okay and we will work hard to build in the experiences we made today to further improve tomorrow.”
Sunday’s track action at the Nürburgring will begin with the third free practice session at 08:30 local time, the qualifying will take place from 11:15 to 11:35. The race itself will start at 13:30.
