PREMA Racing maximises Saturday results at Hungaroring
PREMA Racing scored a podium finish and and some extremely valuable points in day 1 of racing for the FIA Formula 3 Championship at the Hungaroring.
The opening race, starting with a reverse grid from yesterday’s qualifying, saw Olli Caldwell cruise to another podium, his fourth of the year, with a second place starting from P4 and taking advantage of a post-race penalty. Unfortunately, the British racer was involved in contact at the start of the reverse-grid race 2, and finished in arrears. He still holds second place in driver points.
Dennis Hauger delivered a superb top-5 finish starting from P11 on the grid, powering through the pack with a fast pace and some brilliant overtakes. In race 2, he was pushed back again by a reverse grid. However, the Norweigian was perfect again, fighting back from P8 to another P5 which increased his margin at the top of the driver championship.
Arthur Leclerc had a challenging day. Having to start from P15 due to yesterday’s pole and a 3-spot carryover penalty from the previous round, the 20-year-old Monegasque was stuck in the middle of the group on a track where passing, especially while in the middle of large packs, is incredibly hard. He eventually took P13 in race 1, before improving to P11 in race 2.
#1 DENNIS HAUGER
#1 – Dennis Hauger
“Today we scored great points for the championship again. In race 1 we had a good pace and managed to get up the pack. Lap 1 was quite interesting as I got past both my rivals and that was important for the rest of the day. I also had a lot of fun on overtakes as I decided to send it on the outside which worked quite well. In race 2, the track was quite warmer, and the degradation was a bit higher. I just tried to manage it as well as I could. Once I got past Doohan, who was struggling quite a bit, I could try and get to the pack in front without the dirty air. Not enough laps though, and too hard to get around. Still, great points we can take with us.”
Qualifying: P2
Starting Grid Race 1: P11
Starting Grid Race 2: P8
Fastest lap: 1:33.253
Race 1: P5
Race 2: P5
#2 ARTHUR LECLERC
“It was a difficult day as it’s really tough to overtake here even if we have the speed. In addition, it’s a challenging track for the tyres, and we still need to work on the starts because I lost some positions there in race 1. I did a bit of management at the beginning to attack at the end, but the safety car didn’t help. In Race 2, I took the opportunity on Doohan because he had quite a bit of degradation, but it’s a difficult track, with hot temperatures, so it’s just not easy to start from P13. Now it’s full push for tomorrow!”
Qualifying: P1
Starting Grid Race 1: P15
Starting Grid Race 2: P13
Fastest lap: 1’33″164
Race 1: P13
Race 2: P11
#3 OLLI CALDWELL
“I’m happy with today’s race 1, we got good points again, and it’s great to have another podium even if not in the race we want it. However, we maximized the points that we could from qualifying. Race 2 was not quite what we wanted with an early incident. The goal was to push as hard as possible and see what happened, but unfortunately, it didn’t pay off. We managed to salvage as much as we could from the race with the fastest lap.”
Qualifying: P9
Starting Grid Race 1: P4
Starting Grid Race 2: P11
Fastest lap: 1:33.704
Race 1: P2
Race 2: P29