Maťo Homola continues as a TCR Eastern Europe championship leader after Hungary!
A very promising weekend for Mato started with the fastest time in the Free practice and in the qualifying. The bittersweet taste was brought by technical issues with the clutch and a sensor, which caused huge trouble at the start of both races. This is a brief description of the weekend on the Hungaroring circuit.
Mato was really fast on his favorite Hungarian track – there was no faster driver in the Free practice or the Qualifying session. This brought him 3 points for the whole championship.
Therefore he had a pole position for Race 1 on Saturday. Clutch issues caused, that he almost stalled his car on the start and he dropped to the P8 already in the first corner. Just five minutes into the race and Mato was already on the P5. He managed to get behind a Swiss driver, whose car went into Ludicrous mode on the straights – all the distance cut by Mato in the technical parts of the track was simply gone, and the car was able to pull up to 100 meters away on the straights.
Young Slovak tried his best but was unable to do anything until the race was neutralized by the safety car, due to the accident and red-flagged shortly after. The Swiss driver was disqualified from the race shortly after, as his car did not conform with the technical regulations, so Mato finished on P4.
Matos’s position for the second race of the weekend was decided by the draw of the winning driver from Race 1 and it was P4. Everything was checked and Mato hoped for a good start, but unfortunately, the same problem occurred again. He dropped once more to the P8 and tried to regain his position. He damaged his car during several contacts with a driver on P6, but despite that, he managed to get to P4 during the race. Matos’s teammate on the P1 got penalized during the race for cutting the track with 10 seconds penalty. Mato was grateful to finish the race in one piece on the P4, but the mentioned penalty dropped the winning driver just behind our driver, who finished in the final classification on the P3.
„This weekend was really tough, mainly psychically. Despite me being the fastest in the qualifying, I was not able to start properly in any of the races. OK, at the end of the day, I have nice points from this weekend, but I am not here to collect 4th places. I want to win! Together with the team, we will do our best to find the issue with our car, so we can come back stronger to the Red Bull Ring. I am still a championship leader and I am grateful for that. I would like to say a huge thank you, to my team, partners, family, and all the fans, for their huge support,“ said Mato after the weekend.
The next race will be held on the Austrian circuit Red Bull Ring, at the end of May.
TCR EASTERN EUROPE 2023 CALENDAR:
08. – 09. 04 OSCHERSLEBEN (Germany)
29. – 30. 04 HUNGARORING (Hungary)
20. – 21. 05 RED BULL RING (Austria)
09. – 11. 06 SLOVAKIA RING (Slovakia)
05. – 06. 08 MOST (Czech Republic)
09. – 10. 09 BRNO (Czech Republic)
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