The Red Bull Juniors Jack Doohan, Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson clearly had speed at the Hungaroring but for Lawson and Tsunoda Race 2 was wrecked by a messy start procedure where a muddle of lights and flags left them stalled on the grid and getting away at the back of the pack.
The Motopark pair had qualified second and fourth respectively but that was erased in the confusion. Lawson, the 17-year-old New Zealander had picked up a good third in Race 1 and 19-year-old Japanese Tsunoda was fourth but Race 2 should have been even better for both of them.
“It was another difficult weekend,” explained Lawson “The first Qualy was OK, the car was not that great. We had pretty average balance so I couldn’t really do a great lap and we started P3. In the race the tyres went off pretty quickly, so we struggled to stay with the leaders. I just had to conserve them as best I could and stayed in third.
“Then today we made a big balance change for today’s race which improved Qualy a lot. It really could have been pole, shame we missed it by such a small margin,” explained the Kiwi who was just 0.012 off the fastest lap.
“But still really happy with the car and the progress we made from yesterday. The car was really really good. We then made more changes to the car for the race expecting to be in clear air.
“Unfortunately off the start there was a bit of confusion with the lights and with a green flag and then a yellow flag and I was thinking that the start would be aborted. But then the lights came back on and by then the clutch was too hot and so we stalled the car trying to preload.
“It was a shame and then it was difficult to overtake so that was a disappointing end to the weekend but we definitely had the pace and so it was a bit of a turnaround in that sense so we can be happy about that,” concluded Lawson.
Lawson finished Race 2 in 10th and is third on the points table – 120 points – after 10 of 18 races. Tsunoda finished behind Lawson in 11th and is fourth overall on 110 points.
Australian 16-year-old Doohan spun as he went to overtake early in lap 2 in Race 1 but had a very good drive in Race 2 from P12 on the grid to seventh. He is now seventh in the championship on 58 points.
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