Nicolas Tandy will lead an all-British front row at the green flag for the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup race at the Hungaroring, the championship challenger scoring his second pole position of the season in the eighth round of the championship.
“At the head of the grid – now that's the place I like to be to start a race,” smiled Tandy. “Obviously I'm very pleased, not least because we are now consistently fast: In Silverstone we took pole, in Hockenheim the fastest time would have been possible and now we're right up the front again here. So it looks really good. We were considerably faster in the second session than the first, and that's how it should be. René is only on third, and that's a chance I won't waste.”
A week after the title rivals come into contact at Hockenheim Al Faisal Lechner Racing driver Rene Rast set a best time 0.134 seconds behind Tandy's.
“I'm not too worried,” said the German. “I would have been happy to take the two extra points for pole position but it didn't work out. I'd rather have a guy like Tandy in front of me than behind me in the race.”
“I'm going for the title, so I'll be trying my hardest to bring home a good result and earn as many points as possible. If I can keep this up for the last two races, nothing can really go wrong.”
The championship leading pair sandwiched Sean Edwards, in one of his best performances of the season so far, received in modest fashion; “At last I'm where I belong,” he said. “I'm very pleased, our team has really worked well. Now we just have to turn all this into a good race result. Nick needs the points so he'll be up for the risk. But let's see, maybe I can outdrag him at the start, then anything is possible.”
The top four were completed by Jeroen Bleekemolen, returning to Supercup competition after missing the last races for racing commitments in the American Le Mans Series.
Team Bleekemolen Harders Plaza driver Jaap van Lagen will start fifth, ahead for VELTINS MRS teammates Norbert Siedler and Jan Seyffarth annexed the third row of the grid. Patrick Huisman, Kuba Giermaziak and Stefan Rosina completed the top ten qualifiers, the Slovakian's tenth place denting his slender title hopes, coming into the round third behinf Rast and Tandy.
Local hero guest driver Csaba Walter (who can normally be found in the FIA GT3 series this year) put in a surprising performance, ending qualifying a commendable twelfth fastest, his time seven-tenths behind Tandy's benchmark.
