Interlagos has been, in the words of Augusto Farfus, ‘bitter’ to him in recent years in the FIA World Endurance Championship, but the home hero is hopeful he and Team WRT can turn their fortunes around this weekend in the Rolex 6 Hours of São Paulo (10-12 July).
Farfus has contested two FIA WEC races in Brazil thus far, but has not enjoyed much good fortune at his ‘local’ circuit in the series, garnering just a single point for a tenth-place finish in 2024.
This season, the 42-year-old Curitiba native arrived at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace sitting 13th in the LMGT3 class standings alongside team-mates Sean Gelael and Darren Leung – with a best result to-date of fifth place in the curtain-raising contest at Imola.
With the #32 Team WRT BMW M4 Evo sporting a striking new colour scheme for the event, Farfus is hoping the fourth round of the campaign will give him the opportunity to finally fight for some silverware.
“For me, competing in front of my home fans at Interlagos is unique and the second-most special race of the year, after Le Mans,” he commented. “It’s an honour to be here as a Brazilian, with a nice Brazilian livery on the car, but we don’t get any points or a trophy for that! We need to try to recover from what has been not such an easy start to the season, to maximise our chances in the championship.
“I love coming to Interlagos because I see my friends and a lot of old faces, and seeing so many Brazilian flags around the circuit is always a good feeling, but unfortunately, the last two years here haven’t been as nice on-track as off-track – we’ve always had slightly bitter results.
“We hope this weekend we can turn that around. We’ve put in a big effort and have done a lot of preparation – we came here a month ago to test, and we even did a race in the local GT championship to try to get more mileage and understand how to make our M4 Evo faster – but it’s still too early to make any predictions for the race.”
Around a circuit where the M4 has traditionally struggled, Farfus got off to an encouraging start in FP1 yesterday by setting the third-fastest time in the high-calibre, 18-strong LMGT3 field. While FP2 was not so successful, the #32 trio nevertheless logged a further 47 laps as attentions now turn to qualifying and to securing a strong spot on the grid – particularly important at Interlagos, where overtaking can be tricky.
“It goes without saying that I want to be on the podium and I want to win, but there are always a lot of external factors outside of our control,” the BMW factory driver reflected. “When I come to the racetrack, I want to be able to go home feeling proud of what I’ve done. Sometimes, that’s good enough to be P1; sometimes, it’s good enough to be P10.
“If on Sunday night, I can leave with a smile on my face knowing I and the team did the best job we could, that would be like a victory. That’s how I approach every event, but of course, here in São Paulo, a podium finish would be something very special...”
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