Third consecutive points finish
The Hungarian Grand Prix brought positive notes for Audi, which after a rather negative start to the season (with the exception of 9th place in Australia) has finished the last three races in the points zone. Results that allowed the German team to overtake Williams in the Constructors’ standings, moving into eighth position with a +1 lead over the Grove team, which is in a full competitiveness crisis even at the Hungaroring.
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Hülkenberg’s ‘first’
What changed compared to Silverstone and Spa, however, was the driver from the house of the Four Rings who reached the points zone. After Gabriel Bortoleto’s ‘double’, in Hungary it was indeed Nico Hülkenberg who achieved his first top-ten finish of the season with a good 9th place, a further sign of the team’s progress: “It’s a fantastic feeling to have finally scored the first points of the season – declared the 38-year-old German – there have been a few races this year where we had the pace to score points, but for various reasons things didn’t go as hoped. We always knew the potential was there, so it’s really rewarding to have finally managed to put everything together during the weekend and achieve this result. We made the most of what we had in qualifying yesterday and then had a great race today. Everyone did an excellent job all weekend and it’s rewarding to go into the summer break with points in the standings. We will take this opportunity to reset, analyze everything we have learned in this first part of the season and come back ready to build on these foundations in Zandvoort.”
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One second away from a double top 10
For Audi, however, there is regret at having narrowly missed a goal: that of a double points finish. A result, which would also have been the team’s first of the season, missed due to Bortoleto’s 11th place: “Today I gave everything, and it certainly wasn’t an easy race. We tried to make the one-stop strategy work, and with the hard tires proving to be quite a difficult compound compared to the softs, I had to manage a lot of things during the race. But in the end, I finished less than a second behind Arvid Lindblad, so getting so close to the points is a great result considering the race we had. These are very positive signs heading into the summer break. The team is doing an incredible job and I am very happy with what we have achieved so far this season. I hope we can continue to build on this momentum in the second half of the year.”
