Farfus claims pole position for BMW in Puebla – Priaulx comes second.
21-03-2009
Thanks to an excellent team result, BMW successfully
fought back after a difficult start to the 2009 FIA World Touring Car
Championship. At the “Autódromo Miguel E. Abed” in Puebla (MX), BMW
Team Germany’s Augusto Farfus (BR) set a best time of 1:37.682 minutes
in the second part of qualifying, and secured pole position for the
third race of the season. BMW Team UK driver Andy Priaulx (GB) was just
0.045 seconds slower than his fellow BMW driver, claiming second and
making it an all BMW front row in Puebla.
Five BMW drivers made it into the top-ten at the 3.240-kilometre
track. Farfus’ team-mate, Jörg Müller (DE) came seventh. BMW privateer
Félix Porteiro (ES) finished eighth for Proteam Motorsport. BMW Team
Italy-Spain’s Sergio Hernández (ES) managed to make it into “Q2” for
the first time this year, finishing tenth, while only his team-mate,
Alessandro Zanardi (IT)l failed to make the cut and had to make do with
12th on tomorrow’s grid.
“Following the difficult races in Brazil we couldn’t expect this
result,” Farfus commented after claiming the seventh pole position of
his WTCC career. “But we worked hard and were absolutely determined to
score some points here in Puebla. This mission will hopefully be easier
now I am starting from pole. Of course I will also try to keep the lead
throughout the race, although this won’t be easy. It’s great to have
another BMW driver in Andy Priaulx beside me on the front row. A big
thank you to the whole team.”
As early as in the first part of qualifying Farfus proved just how
talented he was. One run was enough for him to set a 1:37.981-minute
lap – the fastest time of the weekend up to then – and to take the
lead. Along with Priaulx, Müller, Hernández and Porteiro advanced
easily into the second qualifying session. All the BMW drivers apart
from Hernández were able to improve on their lap times in “Q2”. While
Farfus completed his pole position lap at the start of the session,
Priaulx went out halfway through the 10-minutes, only missing out on
beating Farfus’ lap time by fractions of a second.
“We needed this result,” said Priaulx. “The season opener in
Curitiba was a big disappointment for us. Therefore it’s great to start
from the front row here. The grip level is much higher than in previous
years, which suits our cars. In fact, we were more than three seconds
faster than in last year’s qualifying.”
Now the BMW national teams are in a promising position to improve
on their previous results in Puebla. Last year Priaulx was the only BMW
driver who managed to score a championship point on the slowest circuit
on the calendar. The third race of the FIA World Touring Car
Championship will start on 12:20hrs local time (18:20hrs GMT) on
Sunday, race two will get underway at 15:50hrs (21:50hrs GMT).