Despite starting the Feature race at the back of the field following a post-qualifying disqualification, where he had set the best time of the session, Charles Leclerc showed his fighting spirit and strong form once more to claim two fourth place finishes at the Hungaroring.
The Prema Racing driver had looked set to take a seventh consecutive pole position of the season, which would have been a new record for the series, but he was forced to start right at the back, but had moved up to eleventh by the end of the first lap
After taking his mandatory pit stop late on, thanks to starting on the Medium Pirelli tyre, he found himself inside the top five, before moving up to fourth when Artem Markelov crashed out late on, a great recovery from where he started.
“I’m very happy for the race, coming back to fourth place is an amazing result and we got good points after starting from the back,” said Leclerc. “We couldn’t expect any better but watching the race I was a little disappointed for losing so much time behind Albon who was defending hard, which made us destroy the tyres.
“As a consequence, the pace with prime tyres wasn’t the best… well we were really quick considering our tyre level but compared to the others on fresher rubber we weren’t as good. In the end though we finished in a great position.”
Leclerc started fifth on Sunday and worked his way up to fourth and was challenging for a podium when a gearbox issue saw him drop back, although he had enough in hand to retain his position ahead of Norman Nato and Nicholas Latifi.
“In race 2 we were P4 with 10 laps to the end and then a technical issue prevented us from going forward,” said Leclerc. “We finished P4 with the technical issue which is great because the gearbox was very bad and I was losing a lot in the straight.
“It’s a big shame but at the same time it’s positive that we came back with very strong points despite the situations and the hard luck we had this weekend.”
