BMW’s Farfus Seeks to End “Bitter” Run of 24H Spa Events

Augusto Farfus said he’s determined to finally score a podium finish in this weekend’s CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa after the event has been a “bit bitter” for the Brazilian and BMW in recent years.

Although the German manufacturer has the most event victories with 23, when including the long-running touring car era, it has only triumphed in the race once since the first version of the BMW M4 GT3 was introduced in 2022.

Instead, each of the past six editions of the race have been won by a different brand, while the Spa event represented the only round of last year’s Intercontinental GT Challenge season that BMW did not win as it swept to championship success with Farfus part of the lineup for two of those four victories.

He is therefore particularly determined to end a run of personal Spa near-misses when he tackles this weekend’s contest alongside Raffaele Marciello and Jake Dennis at the wheel of a ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

“It would be amazing,” Farfus told Sportscar365 about winning the race. “Spa has, unfortunately, always been a bit bitter to us because you always look good and then didn’t look so good.

“We always get towards the end of the race among the podium and then something happens.

“I’ve never even been on the podium at Spa and it’s a shame because at least four or five times in the last hour I was either leading or top-three and then I think twice we got a puncture.

“Once we got an engine failure and last year Lello (Marciello) got a drive-through because of track limits. There’s always something in the last hour!”

That late penalty dropped the crew to fifth in the final classification last year, which was still the best of the five Pro class BMWs that took part, and Farfus said those late regular change in fortunes reflect the “crazy” nature of the Belgian endurance classic.

“The race itself is very hard considering the driving times and it’s three drivers,” he added. “At Spa we have 70 cars and it’s all GT3s so it’s a race where you have to push all the time.

“You always end up having a Silver, a Bronze, a Gold someone in front of you which is doing his race but is in your race.

“At Le Mans, I only race people that are in my class, at Spa I race everyone. It makes that race very special.”

Marciello, meanwhile, is seeking a reversal of what happened last season in the IGTC as Mercedes-AMG has triumphed in both of the races held so far this year and wants BMW to break that stranglehold this weekend.

He does have previous Spa-winning experience, having triumphed in 2022 when at the wheel of Akkodis ASP-run Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

“If you look at the IGTC, we didn’t win any races this year — it’s been an AMG festival let’s say,” Marciello told Sportscar365.

“But our car is working well, we don’t have any issues. Spa for sure is one of the races I want to win with BMW so we have to push to try to win this race.

“We have a good team and good teammates so we should have a good race. We don’t know how good, but we will try to win this race.”