Fredy Barth saw his Macau weekend cut short after crashing out during qualifying ahead of round 23 of the World Touring Car Championship, thus ending his season two races early.
The weekend didn’t start off well for the Wiechers-Sport team as Barth visited the unforgiving Macau walls during the opening practice session on Friday, ending his session early.
He bounced back to set the 17th fastest time in the second session before heading into qualifying. He set the 16th fastest time of the session before hitting the wall at Paiol, the same location where his last visit to Macau also finished.
The team were unable to fix the #73 BMW 320TC and thus the car was withdrawn from the two races.
“We wanted to finish the season on a high note in Macau,” said Barth. “Unfortunately we have not succeeded in this. I know the hard-working team of Wiechers-Sport definitely wanted a nicer end to the season! I want to therefore warmly thank them for their commitment!”
Team Manager at Wiechers-Sport, Dominik Greiner is also disappointed to have missed the final two races of the season but had now turned his attentions to finalising the teams’ plans for the 2014 campaign.
“The disappointment over the weekend in Macau is obviously very large. We would have liked to have taken part in the race. However, our BMW was so badly damaged in the accident in qualifying, that a race start was not possible. Most importantly, however, is that Fredy was not injured. And the other accidents during the race were fortunately not too serious. From now on, our focus is clearly on the preparations for the 2014 season!”
At the end of the season, Barth finished 17th overall with a best result of 6th in Austria while in the Yokohama Independents’, the Swiss driver concluded the season 7th overall with 43 points to his name.