At the sixth round of the American TUDOR United SportsCar Championship in the Lime Rock Park Mario Farnbacher saw the chequered flag on fourth position in the GTD class. In the course of the two hours and forty minutes of the race the German together with his team mate Ian James once more convinced with strong performance, being the best Porsche in the field. In the standings of the championship, the 23-year-old racer managed another improvement.
After a reasonable qualifying session Mario Farnbacher and his team mate Ian James started into the race from fourth position in the grid. “The qualifying took a satisfying course for us. It’s really difficult to overtake in Lime Rock, so fourth position in the starting grid of the GTD class was okay”, explained Farnbacher. Ian James did the first stint of the race and handed over the Porsche 911 GT America of the team Alex Job Racing to the German on fifth place. With a flawless drive Mario Farnbacher then improved to third position. “It was not easy to keep the Porsche on the circuit. All Porsche drivers had problems”, so Farnbacher. “The basic problem on this track was low grip and accordingly it became a difficult matter for us. Further more the performance of the tyres dropped really quickly, which resulted in consequences for me as well.” Farnbacher slipped off the track and dropped back to fourth position. Finally he managed to stay on fourth place till the chequered flag came out.
However, at first it didn’t look as if it would develop to a finally successful weekend. “We had a really difficult start into the weekend in Lime Rock”, Mario Farnbacher draws a balance. “We struggled with some technical problems on the powertrain of our Porsche. In fact that cost us a lot of time which would have been useful to find a better setup for the car. However, now we are happy with fourth place and further more we were the best Porsche team.”
There is no time to take a deep breath for Mario Farnbacher. Already next Saturday (August 1st) the Bavarian is at start in the fifth round of the German Endurance Championship VLN on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. He will be at the wheel of the new Lexus RC-F GT3 for the team Farnbacher Racing. Already one week later he returns into the USA again, to compete in the next round for the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, which takes place from August 7th to 9th on the traditional Road America circuit.
