Augusto Farfus was left rueing his bad luck as the 2016 DTM season ended with a retirement for the Brazilian driver. A freak technical issue and contact delayed the Shell BMW M4 DTM before it was withdrawn from the race.
After a luckless run to 11th on Saturday, Farfus was hoping for a strong finish to his year. However, qualifying didn’t go to plan for the BMW Team MTEK man – he would start 12th on the grid.
It was a chaotic start, and the red-and-yellow machine was in tight scraps throughout the opening laps. With tyre degradation beginning to play its part, he dropped some places and was then punted into a spin by Timo Scheider. Shortly afterwards, he came into the pits, but found himself delayed by a technical issue in the cockpit.

“This wasn’t the best race for me, that’s certain,” he said afterwards. “The first set of tyres just felt awful; I was super slow, and I was really struggling. I couldn’t drive on them, and then they dropped off at the end. It didn’t help that I was spun around, either! Then, I had an issue in the cockpit, which is unfortunate and frustrating, so I needed a long stop to fix it and then in the end I had to retire. It feels like bad luck has been the story of my season.”

The car was retired after 29 laps, ending a frustrating 2016 season prematurely.

“It’s been a very difficult year, things just didn’t turn out right for us. Sometimes these things happen, and even if you fight every race, give 100% every race, it just isn’t going to be. 2016 was that year for me!”

One hundred per cent was exactly what was given, especially in the pit stops, where Farfus’ BMW Team MTEK crew won the award for fastest pit work in the DTM. “I have to thank the team, they were all phenomenal this season. Congratulations to them for winning the fastest pit crew award.”

However, there was some consolation as BMW Motorsport team-mate Marco Wittmann was crowned the DTM drivers’ champion. “I’m happy, of course, that Marco is the champion. That’s great for BMW Motorsport, and we can celebrate that. Huge congratulations to him, he drove fantastically this season, and he thoroughly deserves it.”

Augusto Farfus finished 16th in the DTM drivers’ standings, with 44 points after 18 races.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *