2022 FIA ETCR Recap: Bravado in Budapest

CUPRA EKS driver Adrien Tambay offered a taste of things to come at the second round of the FIA ETCR eTouring Car World Cup for Race HU at the Hungaroring with the Frenchman moving to the top of the Drivers’ Classification.

Tambay sped towards the coveted King of the Weekend title following an exciting weekend in which he won the Pool FURIOUS DHL Super Final, but it was a weekend which didn’t go all the way of Tambay or his CUPRA EKS squad.

Indeed, one of the moment notable moments of the weekend was where Tambay and team-mate Tom Blomqvist came together on track in an incident from which Tambay would recover to take the flag, but Blomqvist would not.

Read the Saturday report here

Notwithstanding the CUPRA couple’s conscious coupling on track on Saturday, there was cause for Romeo Ferraris with Maxime Martin taking the DHL Super Final win in Pool FAST – beating Pau winning CUPRA EKS driver Mattias Ekström – and Bruno Spengler also scoring strongly across the weekend.

Indeed, the weekend points tallies were illuminating. Tambay took 90 points to steal a march on team-mate Ekström, whose tally was 80 from the weekend. Martin was only two points back with 78 to his name and Spengler took 77.

In team terms, CUPRA EKS had stolen a march on their rivals at round one, scoring 192 points with both Romeo Ferraris and Hyundai Motorsport N taking 117 apiece. In Hungary it was 170 points for CUPRA with 155 for Romeo Ferraris, with Hyundai receiving the much try harder mark on their report card with 106.

It was an amazing DHL Super Final for me,” said Tambay after the win.

“I had to make ground for my mistakes from yesterday and this morning’s starts. I put pressure on myself because I needed to reward the team with a good result. I knew the car was really quick around here and I had to have a trouble-free race. I had to overtake Bruno quite strongly and it happened after two corners and that was the best plan, the plan A, which worked. I’m pretty happy!”

Read the Sunday report here

The Budapest event was the second in the season following the postponement of Race TR, but there would be action immediately following Budapest with FIA ETCR heading to the fabulous Jarama circuit straight afterwards for Race SP.

Relive the second round of the 2022 season through this playlist