BMW Junior Team drives into the night at Le Castellet, battling to fourth place for ROWE RACING

Neil Verhagen, Dan Harper and Max Hesse impress in the 1,000km race / Tyre damage slow down Nick Catsburg, Augusto Farfus and Nick Yelloly in team’s second car

St. Ingbert, 5th June 2022 – The BMW Junior Team of Neil Verhagen, Dan Harper and Max Hesse secured a great result for ROWE RACING at Le Castellet, in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup. Driving into the night in the 1,000km race on the Formula 1 circuit in the south of France, the trio gave an impressive performance to claim a great fourth place with the #50 BMW M4 GT3. Having started from 22nd position, they moved up 18 places as the race progressed. The team’s #98 car had made an even better start but was then knocked back in the second hour of the race due to tyre damage. After a great recovery performance, Nick Catsburg, Augusto Farfus and Nick Yelloly finished eleventh in the end, just missing out on a top ten spot.

The BMW Juniors could only secure 22nd place in qualifying but starting driver Neil Verhagen from the USA put the #50 BMW M4 GT3 within range of the top ten during the first two hours. Second driver, Britain’s Dan Harper, then continued this progress and handed the car over to Max Hesse in fifth position after 118 laps.

A late pit-stop by Audi driver Frederic Vervisch saw the BMW Junior slot into sixth place behind the Belgian driver before overtaking on lap 142. During the final tyre change, Max Hesse had to sit through a five second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. That knocked him back into sixth spot but he was able to overtake the Audi again on lap 166. Shortly afterwards, the second placed Lamborghini of Italian driver Mirko Bortolotti was disqualified when the rear lights failed and the BMW Junior Team moved up into fourth place, which Max Hesse defended to the finish line.

The #98 car also gave a performance worthy of a top result at Le Castellet. Having secured twelfth place in qualifying, Dutchman Nick Catsburg assumed the role of starting driver and had already worked his way up to seventh when he suffered front left tyre damage on lap 46. The slow drive back to the pits and the tyre change knocked the #98 BMW M4 GT3 down to 36th position. Brazilian driver Augusto Farfus then came in for another brief pit stop for tactical reasons during a full course yellow phase, topping up his fuel before starting a great recovery performance. He handed the car over to Nick Yelloly in 16th place and the British driver moved up to eleventh position during the final kilometres. In the end, they finished just 1.161 seconds shy of the top ten.

Hans-Peter Naundorf, Team Principal ROWE RACING: “That was not a simple race weekend. We had plenty of work to do. However, everyone in the team and the drivers did what they had to do. Qualifying did not go as we had anticipated but that is down to the lack of experience with the new car and the new tyres. The race then showed again you can make a lot of progress by keeping errors to a minimum and maintaining a good base speed. This applied in particular to the BMW Juniors. They implemented our instructions very well and were rewarded with a great fourth place. By and large, both cars managed to stay out of trouble in the race, but unfortunately the #98 had to deal with some unexpected tyre problems due to debris on the track. We wanted to keep the car in the race to allow the team and the drivers to gain more experience. We then posted some very good times but unfortunately we were one lap down. The #98 was the fifth fastest car out there today. It’s a shame that they didn’t manage to get tenth place in the end. Nonetheless, it was a great way to round off a really intense first half of the season and now we can take a break for a few days.”

Dan Harper (#50 ROWE RACING BMW M4 GT3): “We are very happy with this fourth place – that is a brilliant result! We had really good pace, especially when it got dark and the track temperature dropped. Many thanks to the ROWE RACING team and both of my driving teammates, Neil and Max! We did a superb job together and are delighted with all those points. It’s a shame that our other car had the puncture. The lads could have been on course for a podium.”

Nick Catsburg (#98 ROWE RACING BMW M4 GT3): “We really had a very good car in the race. The balance was brilliant. Unfortunately, we then had some bad luck with the tyre damage. We don’t exactly know what caused it yet but we think that we may have driven over some bodywork parts on the track but we did post some fast lap times after that, and finished eleventh. Together with fourth place for the BMW Junior Team, that’s a good result. We worked well as a team and now we will concentrate on setting up even better at Spa Francorchamps.”

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