WTCR Hungary post-Qualifying press conference 11.06.2022: WTCR Race of Hungary, Hungaroring, June 10-12, 2022 WTCR − FIA World Touring Car Cup, Rounds 5 and 6 of 20 Hungaroring, June 11, 2022 In attendance: Mikel Azcona (BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse), pole position, Race 1 Nathanaël Berthon (Comt

WTCR Race of Hungary, Hungaroring, June 10-12, 2022
WTCR − FIA World Touring Car Cup, Rounds 5 and 6 of 20
Hungaroring, June 11, 2022

In attendance:


Mikel Azcona (BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse), pole position, Race 1
Nathanaël Berthon (Comtoyou DHL Team Audi Sport), second position
Yann Ehrlacher (Cyan Racing Lynk & Co), third position
Dániel Nagy (Zengő Motorsport)
Attila Tassi (LIQUI MOLY Team Engstler)






Mikel, can you summarise the feeling of being on pole position?


Mikel Azcona (BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse), pole position, Race 1


I’m really happy about the qualifying. I was a bit disappointed after I did a mistake at the chicane because I said, OK, it’s game over. I’m sorry for Esteban and Gilles that they lost their laps to track limits. But in the end it’s a really good result for us.


Starting on the pole position for the first race we want to try to lead and finish on the podium at least, looking ahead to the championship. I’m very pleased for the team, they were super-good to give me an amazing car. And basically thanks to Hyundai and BRC because the car was working very well, and that’s good to start the weekend and we need to finish the work.






Nathanaël, if you had nailed the final sector you were on for pole position, weren’t you?



Nathanaël Berthon (Comtoyou DHL Team Audi Sport), second position



Yeah. Also it was starting in sector two, I had some strange things happening on the front right, I would say. We will have to investigate. Like it was water or oil on the track, it was really strange. Almost half a second gone for that. OK, everybody did a mistake at the end.


So I’m happy with P2, the boys did an amazing job, at Audi and Comtoyou, so congrats and I’m proud to be part of the team. It’s good for us, a bit sad for Gilles. He was really good until this point. We know how tough it is and this shows how much we are on the limit for the Audi guys. We are pushing to the maximum and sometimes it happens. Finally we are still good.





It looks really tough here. How hard is it to get a clean lap?




Nathanaël Berthon (Comtoyou DHL Team Audi Sport), second position


Yeah, also it was really hot, so the conditions changed all day. We had to adapt with the set-up. For everyone it was the same, also the driving style. Inside the cockpit it’s a sauna, so to lose kilos it’s good! You have to do three qualifying and stay focused for a long time. That’s why I think the exercise is not easy. We can be proud of what we did, really an amazing job we have done since the beginning of the year, the whole team is pushing flat out.





What are your thoughts on starting behind Mikel and how the race could go?




Nathanaël Berthon (Comtoyou DHL Team Audi Sport), second position


Race pace is always different than qaulifying pace. Let’s see how the degradation is. We worked a bit on a race sim in FP2 and we have some important data we have to look at and the engineers I hope will make the best choice for us tomorrow. I hope also it will be a bit colder, it’s also harder on tyres and brakes when it’s hot during the race. It’s not going to be easy. As I always say, first of all I must make a good start. We know each other, we are all professional, it’s going to be alright.





Yann, you have said with Mikel starting in front anything can happen. Talk us through your thoughts.



Yann Ehrlacher (Cyan Racing Lynk & Co), third position

We all want to deliver our best and be as far up front as possible in the races, and Mikel is one of those drivers who is quite offensive for some… how to say in a political way? – nice contact and nice racing for the spectators, so it will be fun.





Are you saying he will provide entertainment for us?



Yann Ehrlacher (Cyan Racing Lynk & Co), third position

He will provide great entertainment for you, not sure for us. It will be a tough fight, like it is always with everyone in this field. It’s a really tough competition. When you see in Q2 we were four or five drivers within a tenth. It can show close will be the racing tomorrow.


With this temperature the tyre management will be quite crucial, so that will be our focus tonight to optimise our race pace as much as we could and to have as many points as possible because we are looking for points now. From the beginning of the season we didn’t have the opportunity to score anything, about the qualifying points at the Nürburgring, in Pau we missed Race 2 while running P3 with a puncture. So we need points now and it’s time to be back.






Your whole team needs points, so why are there not more of you in Q3?



Yann Ehrlacher (Cyan Racing Lynk & Co), third position


I don’t know. It’s a difficult track, it’s really tough when you are on the edge as we saw with track limits mistakes, just braking two or three metres later or earlier you are off the pace completely and then you lose four or five positions.


This repeating on 10 or 15 corners, it is really not easy, in three qualifying in a row. It is something tough and shows as well how close the competition is in this championship. We will see. For sure we want to optimise the chance for Cyan Racing and Performance to be champion at the end of the year, that’s our main focus and target.





Dániel, are you OK and talk us through what happened.




Dániel Nagy (Zengő Motorsport)


First of all, thanks a lot for all the messages I got in the last couple of minutes. I’m totally fine. I have some muscle pain, but it’s alright when you hit the tyre stack at over 100kph. That’s the most important thing and the guys are already working on the car and trying to figure out what parts are damaged and what we need to order and how we do it. Well, most importantly I’m fine.





That’s good. There’s so much pressure coming into your home race. How hard is it being in your shoes at your home circuit?


Dániel Nagy (Zengő Motorsport)

Actually I’m getting used to it and nowadays I think I can use it as an advantage because the support our fans are giving us is making us more confident. I used that extra confidence on the qualifying to to reach Q2 for the first time this season and also my team-mate Rob Huff did it as well, so it’s a nice result for the team. And we were trying to fight for the top 10 for a better reverse grid position, but all of a sudden we had a mechanical failure in the front of the car which was not the team’s fault.


I think the tyre was spinning on the rim. The first time when I hit the wall quite hard I didn’t know what had happened. I was just outbraking myself, it was really strange. But then we looked at the car, it came back and we saw the tyre failed. For sure, I don’t want to say anything else. We need to analyse, we need to talk to the officials as well. At the moment I’m really disappointed because we were pushing so hard, we were achieving and then all of a sudden we went from hero to…




We know anything can happen in the races.



Dániel Nagy (Zengő Motorsport)

Actually Attila has mentioned a couple of times in the week that he is rain dancing, so I think he needs to do it even more. I will join him and we will try to put on a good show for the fans tomorrow and try to fight ourselves into the top 10. Before that we need to repair the car. It won’t be an easy thing to do but I know the mechanics really well and they are mega, nearly at the top so I believe in them.






Attila, you look a little happier now, but when you came in you looked deflated.



Attila Tassi (LIQUI MOLY Team Engstler)

First of all I’m glad Dani is OK and got out with no bruises or anything. We also had a tough qualifying, not one we were expecting. We knew after the FPs it would be a tough one for us, we were really struggling with the new compound tyres. It seems it requires some other set-ups or some other changes we didn’t know until FP1 because we didn’t have the chance this week to test the new tyres.


So this is a pity. I was improving all the way through qualifying. I really feel like I was extracting the maximum out of the car. Maybe I can get one tenth that I can feel. To be honest I don’t feel much more right now, so we have to go into deep analysing of the data and onboard cameras. But I think this is the way testing comes in play and unfortunately that’s what we didn’t have so much in pre-season. We only had two tests. Probably race tracks like Pau and Nordschleife are not like Hungary, so the set-up of the car…



Dániel Nagy (Zengő Motorsport)


There is no track like Hungaroring.



Attila Tassi (LIQUI MOLY Team Engstler)


Exactly!




It looks so hard out there. What is it that makes it so tricky?



Attila Tassi (LIQUI MOLY Team Engstler)


All the technical corners, there are no two similar corners. I think that’s why all the Formula 1 drivers say they really like this track, it’s very technical and it’s a hard one. The pictures don’t lie. It’s really hard to put a good lap together and it’s just unfortunate we didn’t manage to go to Q2 and fight for the top 10.


 But we never give up. I believe in the team and myself still. We have a long night ahead of us, we will see the data and onboards and then we try to come up with something which can solve our problems. The aim will be to go for strong points.




 Richard Rodgers, photos WTCR