BMW’s Augusto Farfus says that qualifying was ‘below expectation’ for BMW after the Team RBM driver was the only driver for the manufacturer to make it into the final segment at the Hockenheimring.
BMW are hoping to maintain their lead over Audi in the manufacturers’ championship, which stands at 21 points heading into the final race of the season. However a difficult qualifying session saw only Farfus and António Félix da Costa make it into the top ten for the marque.
Farfus qualified his car in fourth position, making his fifth Q3 appearance of the season. However the Brazilian admits that qualifying did not go according to plan for the brand.
“I think the performance itself was alright – there was not a lot more to get from the car,” said Farfus to TouringCars.Net. “But I have to say it’s way below our expectations because we didn’t expect to have just one car in the top eight. The manufacturers’ championship is still on the table so we want to get that and tomorrow is going to be a hard task.”
With the drivers’ title already being decided in Marco Wittmann’s favour and it being the final race of the season, Farfus predicts that Sunday’s race will be an eventful one.
“A lot of things can happen – I expect a race with lots of safety cars – a little bit of everything,” said Farfus. “Normally you see more accidents at the last race of the year because people just want to get a result. Being P4 I think it’s alright, especially to finish the season.”
In both of Farfus’ previous two seasons in the DTM he managed to finish inside the top ten in the championship. The Brazilian, who is currently 11th overall, admits that it has been a more difficult season than he could have anticipated with BMW’s new M4 car.
“It’s been a very difficult year – I didn’t expect such a bad season. I had some bad luck as well during the year but very often we didn’t have the performance. Today to find some performance in the car is always nice.
“With the M4 we’ve struggled. Not only me but every driver apart from Marco, who’s had an awesome season. Everybody has struggled a little bit to get the car where it should be. It’s a shame but I think we are starting to understand by this time where to [make changes], and now it’s good that we have a winter break because we can definitely see what to do and the steps we need for the future.
“Let’s try to have a clean race with no safety cars and bring a result home. Audi are normally very strong on race pace so it might be a very difficult race for us tomorrow.”