BRC Racing’s Dániel Nagy admitted that he didn’t expect to finish on the podium in the second TCR Europe race at Zolder, but the Hungarian was nevertheless relieved to get his title campaign back on track.
Having just missed out on a podium finish in Saturday’s race, where Nagy took the chequered flag in fourth behind team-mate Mat’o Homola, he went one better in Sunday’s reverse grid race.
Nagy started from fifth and benefitted when Julien Briché and Andreas Bäckman ahead of him made contact at Turn 2, giving Nagy a podium position early in the race.
From there, the 22-year-old was able to hold position and claim his first podium finish of the year in the series.
Nagy’s results in Belgium have moved him up to fifth overall in the drivers’ championship, 47 points adrift of the series lead.
He admitted afterwards that he was relieved to be closer to the championship fight, after a difficult weekend at Circuit Paul Ricard had seen him scrapping just to get into the top ten.
“I’m mega-happy that my championship fight is back on track,” said Nagy. “This weekend was really, really hard for all the Hyundai cars as the Honda and Audi cars were much faster than us.
“To finish on the podium is really, really nice and a bit unexpected.
“I made a good start [in race two] and then I had some good luck as two cars ahead of me collided.
“Then I tried to concentrate on myself, but Mike Halder was giving me extra pressure; he was faster on the straights and he was better under braking, so it was tough.
“I took a lot of risks, to be honest, so big thanks to the BRC Racing Team.
“It looks like we are heading in the right direction – there is a big fight between the two Hyundai teams and so I’m very happy for the team that we were able to be faster than Target Competition this weekend.”