Top-15 finish in Supercup race at Hungaroring in BudapestGreat race pace only 0.4 seconds off fastest lap and consistent lap times
This past weekend, the Hungaroring just outside Budapest hosted the fifth round of the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup. This 4.4kilometre-long track is known to be one of the toughest for overtaking on the Supercup calendar. A good starting position in the race is absolutely vital in order to achieve a good race result. After a couple of Top-12 finishes recently, the young Australian racing driver Spike Goddard finished 15th, scoring an important point in the Championship.
The weekend started with Free Practice on Friday afternoon in searing 36°C heat (track temperatures were near 50°C). During the 45-minute practice session, Spike completed a total of 21 laps with a best time of 1:52.192, which was 2.5 seconds behind Austrian Philipp Eng, who was on new tyres. “We were running on old tyres whilst many of the other drivers were on new tyres”, said the 22-year-old. “New tyres are probably worth about one second in lap time. Taking into consideration the hot weather and running on old tyres, I thought we had a decent practice session that will be useful for qualifying.”
The Qualifying Session took place just after midday on Saturday. Everyone was feeling the heat as the air temperature was again around 36°C and the track temperature above 50°C. Spike had saved both sets of new tyres for qualifying. During qualifying, he completed 11 laps using both sets of new tyres and his fastest lap was 1:50.718 (1.4 seconds quicker than he went during Friday’s practice) and 1.47 seconds off pole (narrowing the gap to pole by a full second from the day before). This lap time was good enough for 16th place on the grid in the field of 26 drivers. “It was very tough during qualifying, especially since my air conditioning wasn´t working. We know that during the race overtaking will be difficult but we are in a position to score points from 16th on the grid”.
The 14-lap (30 minute) race took place just before midday on Sunday.Fortunately for all of the drivers the temperature was a pleasant 25°C, 10°C cooler than the previous two days. Spike did not get a good start in the race but this soon turned out to be a fortunate outcome. During the first minute of the race on lap one going into the chicane at turn 6, Nico Menzel running in about 20th position completely lost control of his car. Out of the corner of his eye, Spike saw ‘this yellow car coming’ and took evasive action to largely avoid Menzel (he scraped Spike’s right door) as Menzel hurtled by Spike. Menzel finally ran into the unfortunate fellow Australian Sam Power ending his race. Had Spike beaten Power off the line at the start it might have been him that would have been taken out by Menzel.
Having survived lap one, Spike was 16th behind Cameron Twynham whom he tailed for the next six laps before finally overtaking him in the Chicane. At that point in the race Spike was 15th and was seven seconds behind Conner De Phillippi in 14th place. Once Spike had a clear track in front of him, he proceeded to set some of the fastest times on the track (1:51.21) during thesecond half of the race. He crossed the finishing line in 15th, having closed the gap to 14th by over five seconds, from seven seconds to under two seconds, and in doing so collected an important point in the Championship.
“I was really pleased with my pace in the second half of the race, where my fastest lap was just 0.4 seconds off Muller’s fastest lap of the race and 0.2 behind my team mate’s Engelhart. In hindsight, I was fortunate to have had a poor start because I could have been the one taken out on lap one.That’s racing! Rest assured, I don’t intend to make poor starts part of my race strategy. ”
This coming weekend the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany will compete at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. “We raced there a few weeks ago in the Supercup. I like the Red Bull Ring as it is a fast and flowing.”
