Mehdi Bennani admits that he was surprised to have taken victory in the wet conditions in the opening World Touring Car Championship race at the Hungaroring, with the Moroccan earning his second career WTCC win.
Bennani led the entire race from start to finish after making the right decision on tyres in a wet and changeable first race.
From pole position, thanks to the reversed grid now being in the opening race, Bennani led the field throughout the wet race on wet tyres, allowing him to take his first win with Sébastien Loeb Racing and his first since Shanghai in 2014.
“If you asked me one time which race I’d win in my career, I never thought I’d win in rainy conditions, but it’s happened today and I’m very happy,” said Bennani. “I tried to manage a good start, I took a little gap and this gave me more confidence to drive consistently and this is what I tried to do.
“But in conditions like this you have to be brave to stay on the track. A lot of the time I was a little bit close to going out of the track, but it’s like this. We are driving against the best drivers in the world so we need to drive to the limit.
“The last three or four laps I tried to manage my gap and take my win here. It was very close in the last race [in Slovakia] but this time it was for us.”
Bennani believes that his decision not to switch to slicks like some other drivers at the start of the race paid dividends, as although the track appeared to be drying out, it then got significantly wetter as the race developed.
“I had a big conversation with my engineer [about the tyres],” added Bennani. “After my out lap I was thinking it was too risky to do slick tyres and after I decided to do the best with what I had.
“I didn’t think about the options of the other drivers, I just thought about doing my best with what I had on my car and that’s it.”
Bennani’s win elevates him to third overall in the drivers’ championship standings on 77 points, even ahead of works’ Citroën driver Yvan Muller.