At the 24 hours race in Daytona Mario Farnbacher experienced the longest three minutes of his racing career. Together with his team mates Ian James, Alex Riberas and Wolf Henzler the 23-year-old was on the way for a top-result at North Americas most popular endurance race, when a three minutes time penalty thwarted all hopes of the team for a great success.
“What a huge disappointment for us. For most of the time we were battling at the top and now we have to settle with ninth rank in the class only”, explained Mario Farnbacher after the 54th running of the legendary endurance classic in Florida. “The team has made a terrific job in the course of the 24 hours. Thanks a lot to the whole crew.”
At wet conditions in the qualifying Farnbacher and his team mates managed to claim eighth position in the starting grid of the GTD-Class, which was a reasonable base to start from. After the start of the race the driver line-up of the team Alex Job Racing made progress really soon and even managed to take over the lead for the first time during the race.
“Everything went perfect for us until we run into trouble three hours before the chequered Flag came out”, Farnbacher looks back. Because of a breach of the rules the 23-year-old received a three minutes time penalty, which he had to take at the end of the pit-lane. “All our opponents pulled away and I could do nothing against it”, so the Porsche driver. Furthermore the team had a problem with the diffusor of the Porsche 911 GT3 R.
In the end ninth place was only a cold comfort for Mario Farnbacher and the team Alex Job Racing. However, already in the middle of March the young German will have a chance to tie to the great performance of the race in Daytona. Farnbacher will be at the start at the 12 hours of Sebring then. The Porsche driver has got some good memories about the race on the circuit on a former air field. After finishing third in 2014 he took the Sebring race victory last year.
