Does BMW M3 get pushed too hard to reach podium at Road America?

Freiberg and Hindman finish third in the Grand Sport class this weekend in the BMW M3. Did they push the M3 too hard at the end?

It was a good day at the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge for Ashley Freiberg and BMW Motorsport Junior Trent Hindman. They drove the No. 46 Fall-Line Motorsports BMW M3 back onto the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge podium. The duo finished third in Saturday’s two-hour-and-thirty-minute race at Road America, in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

The last two rounds have been challenging and the team came away with nothing after there was a mechanical failure at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and a crash on the first lap at Lime Rock Park.

This weekend the results were much different as the duo combined for a strong performance yesterday. They completed 57 laps of the 4.0-mile, 14-turn circuit, finishing 1.6 seconds behind the winning Porsche. The BMW M3 was on fire all day and the team pushed the performance M3 hard to get to the podium. BMWNA Scholarship driver Freiberg said after the race, “Our M3 was a missile today. I drove as hard as I could.”

Trent Hindman may have pushed the M3 too hard at the beginning of his time behind the wheel and used up the tires and had limited traction at the finish. Hindman said, “I was closing at the end and was hoping some of the slower traffic ahead would hold up the leaders, but I think I may have been too hard on the tires in the beginning of my stint.”

In the Street Tuner class, Tyler Cooke and Andrie Hartanto scored a fourth place finish in the #81 Bimmerworld Racing BMW 328i. The No. 46 Fall-Line Motorsports BMW M3 will be in round 8 of the 2015 Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge that takes place at Virginia International Raceway, in Alton, Virginia August 22.