First encounter with Eau Rouge: BMW M4 DTM takes on the ‘Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps’.

Munich. Just a few weeks before the start of the DTM season, the BMW M4 DTM completed its first test laps at the ‘Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps’ (BEL). The official ITR test day took place on Thursday and offered the manufacturers in the DTM the opportunity to prepare for the challenging circuit, which has not welcomed DTM cars since 2005. As no current DTM drivers were permitted to attend the test, to ensure a level playing field, BMW works driver Augusto Farfus (BRA) returned to the wheel of the Shell BMW M4 DTM.

Farfus, who took four victories and finished runner-up in the 2013 season before his DTM career drew to a close at the end of the 2018 season after 104 races, completed more than 130 laps of the seven-kilometre circuit. That amounted to a test workload of more than 900 kilometres. The main goal of the test was to discover how the BMW M4 DTM would behave on the demanding track and to gain valuable experience in preparation for the first race weekend on 1^st/2^nd August.

Following his return to the cockpit of a DTM car, Farfus, who contested the iconic 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps at the wheel of a BMW M6 GT3 in 2019, said: “It was a pleasure to drive the BMW M4 DTM again. I feel honoured and want to thank BMW Motorsport for choosing me as the driver for this test. It felt like yesterday that I did my last DTM race. After two laps I felt at home again in the BMW M4 DTM. The test was trouble free. I could do a lot of kilometres and think that we collected enough data to help the team.”