Before the final race of the 2015 DTM season Augusto Farfus was certain there was only one target for the BMW drivers – to see BMW win the Manufacturers’ Championship. Therefore, after what was for him a tough race in his Shell BMW M4 DTM, he had a broad smile on his face, as this is exactly what happened.
“It is good we achieved our target, which was to win the Manufacturers’ Championship, so well done to the whole team. This is the third time we have won this title in four years, and that is a great achievement,” said the BMW Team RBM driver. However, for him personally this was another disappointing result, as he could only manage 14th, and again had to deal with a damaged car. His explanation was: “I had some damage at the start of the race, so it compromised the rest of it. I had a kind of clean start and was hanging in there, but then with the damage to the car I could not do much. However, at least this time I was able to finish the race.”
Qualifying was also better, as he was tenth on the grid and second best BMW driver. Again Maxime Martin was the best BMW driver in qualifying, but this time Augusto reduced the gap to him to just 0.141 secs. In the race itself he was able to hold onto tenth for the first handful of laps, but then slipped down a few places and was 13th by the time he pitted for his mandatory pit stop at the end of lap 11. He then made it back to tenth, but as the race neared its hour limit and the last of the 39 laps he had dropped down to 14th as he struggled with his damaged car.
Looking back at the season in which he finished 12th in the Drivers’ Championship with 77 points, his comment was: “I think over the season we didn’t put on track the speed we had. I think we had a much better speed than we showed. It is a shame, but I think we have finished the year with a good base for next year, so for 2016 we can start from a much better level and get many more points. I shall soon be back in the car getting ready for next year and am looking forward to it.”
The final tally for the Manufacturers’ Championship was BMW on 602 points, Audi on 595 and Mercedes on 534. Earlier in the year this win had looked unlikely, leading a BMW Team RBM senior engineer to tip Audi for the win. Today in the pit lane after the race he paid the price for that by having all his hair shaved off!
