Five weeks after the Sonoma season-opener, Mario Farnbacher travelled to the NOLA Motorsports Park in Louisiana for the second round of the GT World Challenge America. Together with Racers Edge Motorsports and team colleague Ashton Harrison, the Acura works driver was able to celebrate two podiums.
Originally, the race had been scheduled at the Ozark International Raceway, but was relocated to the track in Avondale, near New Orleans, at short notice. Despite a lack of practice possibilities, Farnbacher and Harrison delivered an encouraging performance right from the beginning and secured promising start positions for the races with a qualifying first and fourth. The 30-year-old was satisfied with the result: “After quite a difficult kick-off to the season, we pulled out all the stops and improved ourselves considerably. It’s so important we keep developing if we want to continue producing positive results.”
Both races saw the team smoothly continuing this strong performance. The duo clinched second place in the ProAm class on Saturday and topped it in the following race with a class win that meant an overall second. Thanks to this strong yield, the two Acura drivers moved up to third place in the ProAm championship.
All reason for the Ansbach-born native to feel happy: “Just last week, I celebrated a landmark birthday and now here’s a belated birthday present. The entire team did a great job, and we got the most out of the weekend. We’re playing a central role and aren’t just bystanders – we’ve certainly worked ourselves forward in the championship. We can see the positive trend and that’s how we’d like to keep it!”
The fifth and sixth races of the GT World Challenge America season are scheduled for 17 to 19 June on the Virginia International Raceway. However, things are moving fast for Farnbacher, and he’ll be heading for the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring from 26 to 29 May.
