PWR Racing’s Daniel Haglöf thinks that he could have taken victory in the second FIA World Touring Car Cup race at the Hungaroring if it had been dry, with the CUPRA driver instead having to settle for a maiden podium finish.
The Swede, competing in only his second weekend at the world level, started the reverse-grid second race from the front-row.
From there, he was able to briefly lead for part of the opening lap in drizzly weather conditions, before being passed by the Honda of Néstor Girolami at Turn 11 further around the lap.
Haglöf also lost out to the Audi of Jean-Karl Vernay on the second lap, dropping him to third, before the race at the front stabilized whilst frenetic racing took place behind in the mid-pack.
Despite it being only his fifth WTCR race, Häglof reckoned that he could have taken victory if the light rain had not arrived before the race.
“I think we would have been stronger in the dry,” said Haglöf to TouringCars.Net. “With my race pace on day one, in the completely dry conditions, we had the pace.
“Having got the start that I got, the plan was to try and overtake Jean-Karl into the first corner, and in the dry I think I could have kept it for a win.”
Having scored his first-ever WTCR podium in just his fifth race – also the second for the team in as many weekends – Haglöf admitted that he was surprised to already be standing on the rostrum.
“For me personally, I didn’t expect this result. I competed against Johan Kristoffersson and Thed Björk on the national circuit, but you never know how much they have developed.
“Thed has been on the world circuit for a couple of years now. I have beaten him in Sweden so I know we can have that level, but for this it’s quite a lot of new things to learn, especially with the tracks for me, so I was not counting on a podium.”
Haglöf added that the team is currently keeping an open mind heading into each race weekend, as they have no prior experience of running on most of the WTCR circuits.
“We will take each weekend as it comes. In the first weekend we said ‘OK it was Marrakech and a lot of things can happen’ and I had a really open mind when I came into this weekend as well.
“Honestly, I didn’t know if we were going to be in 20th position or able to run in the top ten. Everybody was telling us that this track doesn’t suit our car, so I really didn’t know anything.
“On these conventional race tracks I think the bigger budget teams have more of an advantage. In Marrakech everybody was gambling a little bit and there are a lot of circumstances surrounding a weekend like that, so I’m quite surprised that we are where we are at the moment.
“I’m super happy for Mikel [Azcona] with his solid results over the weekend. We will push on to the next circuit.”