After just nine races into his short Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters career, Audi Sport’s René Rast becomes the fourth different race winner this year, but crucially leaves the Hungaroring as the championship leader after three race weekends.
The results that the 30-year-old has achieved this weekend have put him amongst several other high-calibre drivers as potential candidates for this year’s title, which also includes two successive pole positions at the 4.381-km circuit.
“I can’t really put it into words and for that moment, I’ve waited my whole career, especially the last ten years,”said Rast at the post-race press conference, as he now leads Lucas Auer by just one point, after the Austrian failed to score this weekend.
“When I crossed the start/finish line first, it was one of the best feelings that I have had in motorsport, along with being championship leader as well being a nice bonus on top.
“It’s an incredible feeling and we worked quite hard for that, the Rosberg boys, mechanics and engineers. We worked day and night the last couple of weeks to prove ourselves, along with myself and the car, and this is a nice reward.”
Rast calmly bided his time to make the move on Audi stablemate Mattias Ekström on lap 31 into turn one, having assessed the situation correctly.
“I knew that Mattias had stopped early and was on older tyres, so I followed him, saw that his tyres were going away and waited for my chance to attack.
“I saw that he was sliding a little bit more, so out of the last corner, I activated my DRS and he defended a bit, but it was quite good, as we both didn’t lose too much time. We were also able to pull away from Maxime a little bit, and yes, it was just a great day for me.”
Rast also showed a love for the Mogyoród-based track, having raced there previously over multiple racing disciplines.
“I really like the circuit. The grip level is quite high and I like cars with lots of grip but in general, you have to adapt your car to yourself. I think we id a good job of that this weekend, but the Hungaroring has lots of nice fast corners, lots of directions and high braking zones, so for a driver, it is one of the best circuits to drive on.”