While the Norisring on the city streets of Nürnberg may be a long way from Brazil, it is just down the road for Augusto Farfus’ team, BMW Team MTEK, and BMW Motorsport. The former is based in Garching just outside Munich, while the latter is in the city itself.
For Augusto Farfus the race is important, as he was not able to increase his points tally in the DTM at the last weekend in Spielberg. As always, he can only see the positives and so is looking forward to rounds seven and eight in Bavaria: “It is a beautiful event and I am very much looking forward to getting points that I left behind in Austria.”
However, this street track, that has just four tight corners followed by fast straights, has not always been that good for him: “The Norisring has always been a crazy race for us. Last year it was a high and low, with fifth being my best result of the season to date in race one, and then in race two on the Sunday I was the victim of a first corner incident and had to retire with a badly damaged car.”
Augusto has always admitted he is not the biggest fan of this track, which runs around the Dutzendteich lake, however, he does love the way the fans embrace the event: “This is a track that is not that easy to like, but the way the fans react makes up for that as they come in their thousands and are really enthusiastic. The atmosphere they create is fantastic. For a driver it is one of the most challenging circuits to get a good balance for the car and so to have a good race, but I am looking forward to it.“
So far this season he has only had one appearance on the podium in his Shell BMW M4 DTM and that was in the second race in Hockenheim when he was third. He is currently tenth in the drivers’ standings with a total of 32 points, but he knows a good weekend can turn his fortunes round as the winner collects 25 points for each race.
The Norisring is 160 kilometres from Munich, was opened in 1947 and has been on the DTM calendar since 1984. The schedule for the DTM will be FP1 from 17.00 to 17.30 on Friday (24th June). For Saturday it is FP2 from 09.15 to 09.45, qualifying from 11.05 to 11.25 and the 40-minute race starts at 13.28. On Sunday it is FP3 from 09.00 to 09.30, qualifying from 10.50 to 11.10 and the 60-minute race starts at 13.13.
