Difficult qualifying for BMW drivers in rainy Spielberg.

Spielberg (AT), 2nd August 2015. Heavy rain ahead of qualifying for race ten of the DTM season at the Red Bull Ring (AT) made for extremely difficult track conditions during the 20-minute session. The BMW M4 DTM did not cope as well as the opposition with these tricky conditions: none of the eight BMW DTM drivers ended the session in the top ten.

Martin Tomczyk (DE, BMW M Performance Parts M4 DTM) and Maxime Martin (BE, SAMSUNG BMW M4 DTM) qualified 14th and 15th. António Félix da Costa (PT, Red Bull BMW M4 DTM) was 18th, while Bruno Spengler (CA, BMW Bank M4 DTM), Marco Wittmann (DE, Ice-Watch BMW M4 DTM), Tom Blomqvist (GB, BMW M4 DTM), Augusto Farfus (BR, Shell BMW M4 DTM) and Timo Glock (DE, DEUTSCHE POST BMW M4 DTM) occupied positions 20 to 24.

Quote from the best-placed BMW driver.

“Performance was not good in the rain. I expected better. We must now find out whether it was a result of the set-up, the others taking a chance, or the wrong tyre pressures. The result is disappointing. Our car was just not fast enough. To make matters worse, the wet-weather tyres then started to wear and it started to rain more heavily again. That put an end to any hope of improving.” – Martin Tomczyk (BMW Team Schnitzer, 14th)

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Facts and Figures.

Circuit/length:

Red Bull Ring, 4.326 kilometres

Conditions:

Rainy, 15 degrees Celsius

Pole time:

Mattias Ekström (SE, Audi), 1:42.010 minutes

BMW Motorsport results*:

#77 Martin Tomczyk (DE), BMW Team Schnitzer, BMW M Performance Parts M4 DTM

1:43.743 minutes – 14th

#36 Maxime Martin (BE), BMW Team RMG, SAMSUNG BMW M4 DTM

1:43.772 minutes – 15th

#13 António Félix da Costa (PT), BMW Team Schnitzer, Red Bull BMW M4 DTM

1:44.251 minutes – 18th

#7 Bruno Spengler (CA), BMW Team MTEK, BMW Bank M4 DTM

1:44.509 minutes – 20th

#1 Marco Wittmann (DE), BMW Team RMG, Ice-Watch BMW M4 DTM

1:44.707 minutes – 21st

#31 Tom Blomqvist (GB), BMW Team RBM, BMW M4 DTM

1:44.830 minutes – 22nd

#18 Augusto Farfus (BR), BMW Team RBM, Shell BMW M4 DTM

1:44.983 minutes – 23rd

#16 Timo Glock (DE), BMW Team MTEK, DEUTSCHE POST BMW M4 DTM

1:45.348 minutes – 24th

*The official starting grid may differ from the provisional qualifying results published in this release.

Useful information:

Rain fell heavily until about 30 minutes before the start of qualifying – so heavily that warm-up had to be suspended. During qualifying, the rain only fell lightly at first, but the track was wet throughout.

This is the first time this season that no BMW driver has qualified in the top ten.

Martin Tomczyk was the best-placed BMW driver in qualifying for the first time this year.

The tenth of this year’s 18 DTM races begins at 15:15hrs local time.

More information:

You can find the latest BMW Motorsport media information, DTM press kit, and copyright-free images for editorial purposes online at www.press.bmwgroup-sport.com.

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