Practice duties completed for our drivers, marking the start of the second round of the FIA ETCR eTouring Car World Cup at the Hungaroring in Budapest, Hungary. Here are their opening thoughts on Day One of the FIA ETCR RACE HU.
The pre-event press conference took place earlier today, featuring Mattias Ekström, Luca Filippi, Jean-Karl Vernay, Adrien Tambay, Giovanni Venturini and Mikel Azcona.
Pool FAST vs Pool FURIOUS has been set for the FIA ETCR RACE HU, ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying sessions.
CUPRA EKS
Mattias Ekström
First session here was very good; I felt confident in the car from the first meter and then set-up wise, we will have to fine tune the details to be spot on but we’re starting again on the right foot while still staying humble for the weekend.
Jordi Gené
It’s not a bad day, just learning a bit the track, the rhythm and my breaking points. It was good, especially in low power maps, it was very easy. The car handled very well. And in high power, it was a bit more difficult but nevertheless we are on a good rhythm.
Adrien Tambay
As expected, the temperatures are very high so it’s quite different to Pau. It’s a challenge for everyone to get the car to be well-balanced. So far so good. We will try to improve it for tomorrow and the most difficult challenge will be to nail a good lap together, to put everything together and do no mistakes.
Tom Blomqvist
It’s good to be back. Second round, at the Hungaroring which is an awesome track. It’s super hot out there so it’s hard work, and hard work for the tyres. It’s a constant balancing act to make sure you can extract the full potential from the entire lap. But it’s a challenge for everyone, so hopefully we make the best of it and execute better than everyone else. We’ll see tomorrow.
Romeo Ferraris
Luca Filippi
After Free Practice it looks like it’s definitely gonna be challenging. All the three manufacturers are very close so putting together a perfect lap tomorrow in Qualifying will be crucial for the rest of the weekend. We have some work to do and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow and Sunday.
Maxime Martin
The first day in Budapest was ok, we had a good first session where we had the chance to try a few different things and it’s looking good for tomorrow.
Giovanni Venturini
We had a bit of a problem with the software of the car today in Free Practice and that compromised our preparation work for Qualifying. It was something out of the team’s control but anyway we managed to solve it so we’re ready for tomorrow and we’ll keep pushing.
Bruno Spengler
It’s good to be back at Hungaroring, it’s one of the very special tracks we have on the calendar. It’s very fun and technical and it’s quite a long track so that means we don’t get a lot of laps because otherwise the battery runs out, we only had two laps today and we ended the session in P3. I think we can work and improve a little bit here and there for tomorrow but it’s definitely a good basis to start from.
Hyundai Motorsport N
Mikel Azcona
I didn’t manage to put everything together, I made a few mistakes in Free Practice so my session wasn’t very clean. We have to improve for tomorrow’s sessions, which we are already working on. We have some tools to improve the car for the qualifying run but if we put everything together, honestly the pace is there. We are not so far from the first driver, which is very positive and important. Not so bad in the end!
Norbert Michelisz
It wasn’t my best session to be honest. The car feels okay, there are some small things we need to improve. In general, I think with a solid performance we can be around the top tomorrow but everything needs to be in place. I had a small incident today exiting turn three, but fortunately we managed to survive without big issues and hopefully we will have more luck for the rest of the weekend.
Jean-Karl Vernay
I’m quite happy with my lap in Free Practice but it looks like we have some work to do to catch up with the CUPRA EKS. Unfortunately with the red flag we were not able to finish our second flying lap, which was I think a bit better. But still, CUPRA EKS are aggressive and we need to catch up – a long night ahead.
Kevin Ceccon
It was a good day, nice to be back at a normal circuit rather than a street circuit! The feelings in the car are better and looking forward to tomorrow. Let’s see what happens with the weather – it was hot today but cold yesterday, so it’s a bit up and down. I’m sharing the car with Norbi, the legend here in Hungary, so it will be a mega weekend. See you tomorrow!
