The LADA Sport Lukoil team head back to the venue where their Granta race car made its World Touring Car Championship début as the series heads to Hungary for rounds 7 and 8 of the season.
The circuit, 20 kilometres from the Hungarian Capital, Budapest, has proved to be a success in the last two years and the LADA squad will have a lot of fans as the Russian manufacturer is well known in Hungary. The fans can see around 80% of the lap from any vantage point.
The Hungaroring shares a number of similarities with the Slovakia ring; with a number of long corners a key feature of the circuit and Team Principal Victor Shapovalov admits that the team have been working to resolve the issues from the Slovakian weekend.
“The Hungaroring contains a few long corners just like the last round in Slovakia,” he explains. “We’ve been working hard on the balance of the car to avoid some of the problems we faced there: especially a loss of pace in long corners. In Hungary, we’ll be able to try out some new ideas.”
Thompson raced the car at the circuit in 2012 and he feels confident of a strong result after their performance at the circuit last year.
“We start off with a bonus here, as we drove on the circuit last year for the Hungarian round of the WTCC. On that occasion we were quick and I think we can hope for an even better result with a new and improved version of the car. I certainly feel confident there,” adds the British driver.
For Mikhail Kozlovskiy, he heads into another unknown in Hungary and admits that he is going to have to learn the 4.3km Hungaroring by sight.
“I’m just going to have to learn this track by sight, but it promises to be very interesting to drive on,” admits that young Russian driver. “I’m also very keen to try out a new set-up on the Granta, which we arrived at after Slovakia. Finding the correct set-up is always difficult, but we’ve had very good pointers from the telemetry.”