Augusto Farfus in the #18 BMW M6 GT3 art car finished fourth in the main FIA GT World Cup race on the Guia street circuit in Macau on Sunday, November 17. He had finished second in the Saturday qualifying race.
The Sunday race started behind the safety car because of damp track conditions. Farfus ran second to Mercedes AMG-GT racer Edoardo Mortara early, but was involved in an incident on the third lap, soon after the track went green. Farfus tapped the wall as he tried to ward off Mercedes’ Raffaelle Marciello. Marciello hit the BMW, damaging the rear bodywork. The Mercedes retired, but Farfus was able to continue in second place. However, he was shown a black and orange flag, and was forced to pit to have the car’s loose bodywork removed. The stop dropped him to last place on the track, but he recovered to finish fourth behind Mortara, who led from flag to flag. Second place went to Robin Frijns in an Audi and third went to Mauro Engel in a Mercedes. BMW racers Chaz Mostert and Marco Wittmann finished fifth and sixth in a pair of FIST-Team AAI M6 GT3s. There were two safety car periods during the race.
Farfus had finished second to Mortara in the Saturday race. The race had to be restarted after a spectacular multi-car crash on lap one that blocked the street circuit and brought out a red flag. The crash can be seen here. Both the FIST-AAI team’s #91 car driven by Wittmann and the Rowe Racing #99 M6 GT3 driven by Tom Blomqvist were caught up in the crash; while the FIST team was able to repair the #91 car the #99 Rowe M6 was too severely damaged to start the Sunday race.
Cao Fei, who designed the #18 Art Car, was present at the race. The car is carbon black; it is accompanied by a video and an augmented reality piece that can be viewed via a dedicated app. More information on the car appears here.
BMW motorsport director Jens Marquardt said “That was an unbelievably exciting weekend - with a dramatic finale. It is difficult to draw a definitive conclusion from a race like that. Of course, it is a bit disappointing from a sporting perspective to start from second and then cross the line in fourth, but the recovery that Augusto put in with our Art Car, after being knocked back to last place through no fault of his own, was impressive, breath-taking and in the end reconciling. We must also not forget that two other BMW M6 GT3s made it to fifth and sixth places as well. Congratulations to Team AAI, Chaz and Marco - even more so - as the team did a great job to repair Marco’s car overnight, after it had sustained such serious damage. This race also marks the end of a thrilling year under the art banner which we heralded in Daytona with the Art Car by John Baldessari and have now concluded here with the 18th Art Car by Cao Fei. Both Art Cars were fascinating in their own way. It was impressive to experience the enthusiasm of the fans and our guests here, as they joined us in cheering on Augusto and the Art Car. This project was a great success and I am sure it was not just me that found it inspirational. We believe that we have been able to continue the great Art Car tradition and we are looking forward to more projects like this in the future.”—Brian S. Morgan
