Martin Tomczyk and Nicky Catsburg in the #81 BMW Team MTEK M8 GTE finished sixth on the track in the GTE Pro class in the World Endurance Championship six-hour race at Silverstone in the UK, but were later elevated to fifth when the second-place Porsche was disqualified because of a ride height infraction. Their teammates António Félix Da Costa and Augusto Farfus in car #82 retired after four hours with a mechanical problem. The GTE class win went to James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari 488 GTE
This was the team’s third WEC race. Team principal Ernest Knoors said, “In the end, the result doesn’t look spectacular, but the team gave a very good performance both on the track and in the garage. We had the least time spent in the pits of all the GTE Pro class cars and it’s only our second six-hour WEC race. The engineers, mechanics and drivers all did their job extremely well and we leave Silverstone very optimistic.”
Tomczyk noted, “It was a difficult weekend. We thought we would be more competitive but we pushed as hard as we could and sixth position is as good as we could get. Our car didn’t have any issues throughout the entire race weekend and the team performed perfectly. We will keep pushing in the same way for the rest of the season and the results will come.”
WEC competition will resume with the Six Hours of Fuji in Japan in October.
