Piquet Sports - Nelson Piquet Jr 1st
Nelson Piquet Jr put himself in the record books today by becoming the first driver in GP2 history to take a maximum point haul from a race weekend by taking pole position, fastest lap in each race and two absolutely stunning race wins. After an absolutely dominant performance in yesterday's race, he won today's 23-lap sprint race in the pouring rain after starting eighth on the grid. He crossed the line 13 seconds ahead of his championship rival Lewis Hamilton. With four races remaining the gap in the standings is down to just 11 points.
Today's race begun under a rolling start after torrential rain began to pour an hour before the start. With Giorgio Pantano starting from the pitlane after an accident, Nelson was promoted to seventh. The safety car was in use for the first three laps and then on lap 4 Nelson moved up to fourth after Jose Maria Lopez spun off and he passed two cars. On lap three he was up to third after Xandi Negrao crashed and when Alex Premat went wide, he was up to second. On lap six leader Adam Carroll went into the barriers and Nelson took the lead, where he stayed comfortably until the chequered flag, where he took his third race win of the season.
At the start of the weekend Nelson was 26 points adrift of championship leader Hamilton, but after an absolutely flawless weekend, the deficit is down to 11. The next two races will take place in three weeks time at the Istanbul circuit in Turkey, with the season's final two races taking place at Monza in Italy a fortnight later.
Nelson Piquet Jr: "I'm the first driver to do a perfect weekend, and I hope it's the first of many. It was really dangerous out there today and I was pleased when I heard it was a rolling start. So I started safely then I overtook a couple of cars safely then when I was ahead I just got my head down and focused. Everything worked well for the race and now I just hope to do the same thing in Turkey."
ART Grand Prix - Lewis Hamilton 2nd Alexandre Prémat 3rd
ART Grand Prix had a difficult start to their weekend in Hungary, where the cool and wet conditions were opposite to what they expected, however they were quick to react on all levels over the Magyar weekend and managed to secure two podiums – one for each of their drivers - which allowed Lewis Hamilton to limit the potential damage to his championship hopes, as Nelson Piquet Jnr had the perfect weekend, and to keep Alexandre Prémat in his solid 3rd place. In regard to the team championship, ART GP left Hungary with a lead of 50 points over iSport International.
Frédéric Vasseur: Alex suffered from the penalty he's been given in Hockenheim, 15th on the grid, so we had to change his pit stop schedule, which is too bad as with a good race pace he could have climbed onto the podium. However, he ended the weekend very well and took back some points from Glock on Sunday. Lewis had a very difficult weekend but finished it with class in a beautiful race in the rain. The best way to keep our lead in the two championships, to avoid asking us questions, is to attack and think of finishing the remaining races.
Alexandre Prémat: We did not really run in the practice session, because the track was very slippery and wet. After Lewis' crash we decided not to take too many risks. Therefore we did not really know where we were in terms of car balance for the qualifying session. I made two small mistakes which cost me the 2nd best time, but I could secure the 5th one but this soon transformed into 15th position on the grid, because of the penalty I was handed in Germany. I made a great start in race 1 but the car was rather difficult to handle and the visibility was very low which did not help. On Sunday I was at the maximum of the car's potential and I secured a podium. It is not our best weekend but I scored 7 points, which was not too bad. Nelson Piquet and his team obviously found something on the car and we have to make sure that we work hard to get back up high on the starting grid and secure two strong finishes in a race weekend. The ART Grand Prix team is excellent and there's no reason it can't get back on top.
Lewis Hamilton: Obviously the beginning of the weekend did not go too well. A big thank to the whole team for having worked so hard to repair my car in time for the qualifying session but unfortunately I could not clock a lap time in this session, and that's a lesson that I won't forget. I could not do any better in race 1, but it was a springboard for the second race. Securing a 2nd place after starting from 10th is a good achievement for me and the team, and as Alex also scored some points it is good for the team standings. The weekend ended well but we have to stay focused, work hard and get two strong results in Turkey.
Trident Racing - Gimmi Bruni 8th Andrea Zuber 9th
The Hungarian event ended under quite an heavy rain. During race 2 The Trident Racing drivers recovered the gap finishing in P8, Gimmi, and P9, Andreas. Their drive under the rain has been excellent, especially considering that the counts of the drivers out of track or crashing the barriers has been lost. Gimmi and Andreas drove at the same level of the championship leaders. Without the problems of yesterday, they could have gained important championship points. But at the end of the day the overall performance an be considered as positive.
Stefano Alessi – Race engineer car No 26: "Without the broken wishbone, yesterday we could have finished on the podium and today race 2 could have been different . Surely we are not satisfied but we are not disappointed. Our drivers has been very good and technically we set up a fast car. We could came back home with a trophy, of course, and we did not. But we have two more chances to get it so we will not lack our effort. We strongly want to do it and we want Andi to gain a cup as well".
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