Home racer Atilla Tassi is aiming to win the opening TCR Europe race of the weekend at the Hungaroring, after being pipped to pole late in qualifying by Mikel Azcona.
Tassi had been sat on provisional pole for the majority of the session until the current standings leader Azcona gambled on slicks and took pole by almost half a second.
Despite losing out on pole, Tassi applauded Azcona’s decision and told TouringCars.Net he was pleased with his Honda’s setup.
“It was a good session for us, for both me and Josh,” said Tassi. “We had a good setup for rain and also I was always improving lap by lap on my time which was quite good and gave me a lot of confidence during the session.
“At the end I heard I was P2 at the last second because they [Azcona] put on slicks, they made a great choice because they weren’t as fast as they wanted to be so they had to take some risks and they took it and they deserve it.”
For this afternoon’s race, Tassi is confident of his race pace and is keen to go for the win, and believes getting off to a strong start is imperative.
“Hopefully in the race we will be much faster and it will not be changing conditions – it will be one or the other – and I think in that case we are faster than them,” he said. “We just need to have a good start.
“The aim is absolutely the win, but at least a podium.”
The opening race of the weekend at the Hungaroring is set to get underway at 13:40 CEST (12:40 BST).