In attendance:
Santiago Urrutia (Cyan Performance Lynk & Co), first position
Néstor Girolami (ALL-INK.COM Münnich Motorsport), second position*
Frédéric Vervisch (Comtoyou Team Audi Sport), third position

Q:
Santi, you said you were confident coming into this weekend and that mental attitude has a lot to do with why you are sitting in that middle seat. Can you talk us through your race?

SU:
First of all, I have to say that Cyan gave me an awesome car and that’s why I’m P1 at the moment, so thank you to Cyan for their hard work. Then it’s a personal thing that when you are competing at such a high level of drivers and teams in the championship you can’t do mistakes, you have to be 100% every weekend. So when I did a mistake in Aragon that cost me a lot of points in the championship and put me out of Q2, in the summer break I just worked. I worked for myself, I did a few things and I kept believing in myself. I said to you at the beginning of the weekend that I felt I could do well, I like the track and everything started in qualifying which put me on the front row. In race one I bring the car home in good points in P7. I was a little bit lucky that Rob didn’t start race two, I started basically on pole. I had a good start and we know at this track when you are leading the pack it is much easier than when you are behind because you lose a lot of downforce. What can I say? I’m super-happy.

Q:
I know the season is long, but it must be good to be wearing the yellow hat for Goodyear #FollowTheLeader, although you do share the points lead with your team-mate Yann Ehrlacher.

SU:
It’s good to share the lead with Yann. We are team-mates, we push each other to the limit and we are also leading the teams’ championship, which honestly is what we care about. It is the most important thing to win for Cyan, we are Cyan drivers. We follow rules and we’ll do our best. Of course at the moment I am leading the championship but we need to focus on the team’s championship in which we are in a good position. Thed is coming back very well, he is doing a really good job in Aragon and here, so I’m super-happy for him. We’ve only done four race weekends, there are still another four race weekends, so we need to keep the pace, keep what we have right now. But we’ve seen Audi is really quick, Honda even with 60kgs they can still be on the podium, so that’s pretty impressive. The only car we didn’t see as very quick this weekend was Hyundai, but the field is very tight, it’s hard to make a gap in the race, in qualifying, even in the championship. So I think the guy who manages to be a little bit lucky and finish in the points at every race is going to arrive at the end of the championship with chances to win. So I think if we keep going in this way, it will be fine. So I’m happy to be leading and yeah, it’s okay that Yann is sharing the lead with me.

Q:
Bebo, an unexpected position for you up on the podium with Honda’s compensation weight. What are your thoughts?

NG:
Well, first of all congratulations to Santi for the victory. He did a fantastic job. Also to Vervisch, also he was pushing like hell through the race, so I was sweating a lot throughout the race. To be honest, we had a very good start, this was the key thing of the race. I even started a little bit better than Santi, but I decided to keep behind him. I move a little the line under braking, but just following Santi, I didn’t want to overtake him because I knew from the outside it was never working because you get a lot of wheelspin on the exit so I prefer to conserve P2. Unfortunately there was this touch with Norbi, I’m really sorry for him. But you know when you are braking you are really, really, really at the limit. So unfortunately for him it was the end of the race. But then as I said we were fine-tuning the car a lot through the weekend because we knew this 60kg is never easy to manage. In one lap you can do it because you are in fresh air, you don’t have a car in front, so when I started the race I said OK I have to leave a gap with Santi because I need the fresh air to perform and this was the idea during the whole race because if I closed the gap I don’t know if I couldn’t because he was really fast. But then I had more tyre degradation towards the end so I prefer to keep P2. It was a good result for the team and hopefully at Most we will be more competitive, maybe losing some kilos. But the championship is so competitive, you can’t do mistakes, you have to be really focused and this weekend was perfect for me as well.

Q:
Frédéric, when we spoke earlier you said you love the Hungaroring but that something didn’t feel right. How does it feel now?

FV:
In Race 1 I felt like that again! Race 2 for us obviously was a mega result. Also for them, congrats to Urrutia and Girolami for a great job. Like they said as well, with 60kg that’s quite impressive. It’s a very tight championship and for us for sure to start P9 I chose the right side on the first corner which helped me a lot, I was lucky to not be involved in the accidents and that made us move up I tried to keep up them, I pushed all I could and I honestly had better pace than in Race 1, so this was positive. But to overtake was very difficult without touching or pushing somebody out. So I’m very, very happy with P3 and I have to thank my team Comtoyou and Audi for this car, and I would also like to congratulate Gilles Magnus for the second victory of the team, of the car [in Race 1]. He did a mega job, so hopefully we can continue like this.

Q:
What were your thoughts on the query over the jumped start at the beginning?

FV:
I just had a very good start. The lights went out and I went. So for me it’s OK. At T1 I made the most positions because everyone was on the inside and I was braking late and on the outside, so this was the key.

*Following Race 2, a five-second penalty was issued to Girolami, dropping him from second to fifth.