Formula Renault UK Championship leader Alex Lynn scored a strong sixth place on his debut in the Eurocup at the Hungaroring circuit near Budapest last Saturday.
Lynn travelled with the Eurocup branch of the Fortec Motorsport team, with which he has been competing in the UK series to date this season, taking eight wins from ten races.
The 17-year-old from Essex was part of an enormous field of 48 cars which included some of the hottest young talent in Europe. After brief test sessions to learn the circuit, which hosts the Hungarian Grand Prix, he did a superb job to qualify sixth overall.
In a processional race, Alex maintained the position until the end, but felt he had the speed to take a podium. "It was pretty difficult because we didn't get much testing so I was happy to take sixth" he said. "It's very difficult to overtake around there. All of us in the top six were pretty evenly-matched, but I think my potential pace was good enough for the top three.”
"The drivers in the Eurocup all seem very good at qualifying which obviously compromises your tyres for the race, but around the Hungaroring qualifying is everything!"
Lynn put himself eighth on the grid for Sunday's race, but unfortunately had to start from the pit-lane due to a front-suspension problem that struck on the way to the grid.
"After learning so much on Saturday I wanted to put it on the first two rows," he said, "so I was a little bit disappointed with the fourth row. It was my fault - it was early in the morning so the track was quite cool and I didn't get enough heat into my tyres, and when I tried to push I flat-spotted them at the first corner.
"Then on the out-lap to the grid a suspension pick-up broke. The boys did a great job to fix it but while they were doing it the pit-lane closed, so I had to start from there."
It is clearly easier to overtake the slower competitors, but even so Alex did a sensational job to claw his way into the top 20 of the 48-car field, despite a spin on the penultimate lap. "It was a really good race!" said Lynn, who is a member of two highly-prestigious young-driver talent initiatives: the MSA Team UK scheme and the British Racing Drivers Club’s SuperStars programme.
"I really learned a lot about racecraft and I was ten-tenths all the way. I made a little mistake near the end and lost four positions, but got three of them back on the last lap!"
Lynn will now focus on his Formula Renault UK campaign, but is very keen to contest more Eurocup events. "Although the UK is my focus this year, people recognise the Eurocup as being a great championship so I want to do as many rounds as I can as these guys will be my rivals in the future"
For Alex, the Hungaroring experience came hot on the heels of an exciting trip to the European Grand Prix at Valencia the previous weekend as a guest of the Lotus Renault GP team, his mid-season prize for leading the Formula Renault UK title chase.
Lynn flew out to the event on the Wednesday before the race, and had a fantastic time interacting with Lotus Renault GP drivers Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov, team principal Eric Boullier and the team engineers.
"It was really great," said Alex, who was also joined by British Formula 3 Championship leader Felipe Nasr. "I got to go on the track walk with the drivers and engineers, and went through their notes with them. It was a pretty special thing to be able to do.
"I was with the drivers and the engineers all the time, and we were treated as though we were proper test drivers. It was incredible! I’d like to say thank you to the Lotus Renault GP team for their hospitality and also to Lisa Crampton at SRO for arranging it all."
Alex's next race weekend is the next round of the Formula Renault UK Championship, at Snetterton in Norfolk, on August 6/7.
