Christian Lundgaard stormed to his maiden Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 series pole position at the Hungaroring on Saturday morning, with the Renault Sport Academy-backed MP Motorsport driver more than three-tenths of a second clear of anybody else.
Qualifying was again split into two thanks to the large twenty-eight car field, and it was championship leader Yifei Ye who paced the field in the opening segment, with the Josef Kaufmann Racing driver setting a best time of 1:41.200, which was 0.045 seconds clear of R-ace GP’s Victor Martins, and 0.077 seconds ahead of Friday practice pacesetter Logan Sargeant, also of R-ace GP.
Lundgaard was part of the second group and set a superb lap of 1:40.801 to take the pole position, with the Dane the only driver to dip beneath the 1:41s barrier, with R-ace GP’s Max Fewtrell 0.329 seconds back in second and Lorenzo Colombo of JD Motorsport a further 0.049 seconds back in third.
Lundgaard will therefore share the front row with Ye, with Fewtrell and Martins on row two ahead of Colombo and Sargeant.
Aleksander Smolyar was the best of the Tech 1 Racing drivers and will line-up seventh on the grid ahead of R-ace GP’s Charles Milesi, with AVF by Adrian Valles’ Axel Matos ninth ahead of Arden Motorsport’s Oscar Piastri.
Alex Peroni just missed out on a top ten start for MP Motorsport, qualifying eleventh, with the Australian being joined on the sixth row by Tech 1 Racing’s Frank Bird, with Thomas Maxwell (JD Motorsport) and Eliseo Martinez (AVF by Adrian Valles) sharing row seven ahead of Fortec Motorsports duo Vladimir Tziortzis and Arthur Rougier.
There are a couple of driver changes in the Eurocup field this weekend with Richard Verschoor having dropped out of his ride with Josef Kaufmann Racing following his move into the GP3 Series, with Xavier Lloveras also missing from the AVF by Adrian Valles line-up.
Both Clement Novalak and Thomas Neubauer return to Josef Kaufmann Racing and Tech 1 Racing respectively after injury, while there is a Eurocup debut for Dutchman Freek Schothorst at MP Motorsport in place of Jarno Opmeer.
The Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup racers are also part of the field this weekend, and despite setting the best time of the three, Phil Hill will start right at the back of the field for Anders Motorsport thanks to being slowest in the faster second group, while Gabriel Gandulia (R-ace GP) and Doureis Ghattas (Anders Motorsport) start twenty-third and twenty-fifth respectively.
Hungaroring Race 1 Qualifying Result
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