Augusto Farfus hardly has time to draw breath between his races this year, and two weeks after his second 24-hour race of the season he will be back in action in the DTM at the Lausitzring. It will be the second race weekend for the prestigious touring car series and another two races for the Brazilian in his Shell BMW M4 DTM.
No doubt the driver from Curitiba would like to emulate his Nürburgring results in the Lausitzring, as there he started from pole and finished fourth in the marathon, and currently he has just one point in the DTM. He knows that the number 18 BMW Team RBM car he will be driving this weekend has the pace to do well, so is just hoping for a change of luck, as he explained: “It’s great to be back at the wheel of my Shell BMW M4 DTM after the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring. We showed a very good pace at the opening DTM weekend in Hockenheim, but weren’t able to get the results we had been aiming for.”
Along with the other 23 drivers racing in the series he will hope the weather is much kinder than it was last year. Fog delayed practice on Saturday by over five hours and then on Sunday the race started in the wet, but dried out as it went on. Augusto was able to capitalise on the difficult conditions and move up from 20th on the grid to finish in seventh.
This 3.478 kilometre track that’s full name is EuroSpeedway Lausitz is 130 kilometres south of Berlin and one Augusto is fond of: “I have some good memories of the Lausitzring, as I stepped on the podium there for the first time in my DTM career in 2012. Let’s hope for another good weekend there.” This will be the 16th time the DTM has visited the track that was first used for motor racing in 2000 and where the American Champ Car series raced in 2001 and 2003.
The DTM action on the track starts on Friday with a 15-minute roll out at 10.45, followed by a five minute break and then another 15 minutes on track. Free practice one is then from 14.55 to 15.40. On Saturday free practice two is from 11.25 to 12.10. This is swiftly followed by qualifying from 14.00 to 14.20 and then the 40-minute race one at 17.08. On Sunday there is a 15-minute warm up starting at 08.50, qualifying for race two is from 10.40 to 11.00 and the 60-minute race starts at 13.23.
