With a series of fast laps and a clean race, home hero Vivien Keszthelyi bounced back in the second Euroformula race on home soil, bagging a P9 and valuable points.
The rain was forecasted at the Hungaroring for the final day of the fourth Euroformula Open round of 2021; yet, the sun has continued to shine through the morning race, providing another dry and interesting race at the top.
Home hero Vivien Keszthelyi (Team Motopark) had a meixed first day of the weekend on Friday, when she had technical issues that cost her significant speed on the straight and forced the German team to perform an engine change overnight.
Keszthelyi, the first Hungarian driver in single-seaters since Tamás Pál Kiss, was looking forward to a good racing weekend on home soil after the remarkable improvements shown at the previous round in Spa Francorchamps.
In the first race of the weekend, Vivien was P11 after a spin mid-race when she was solidly in 10th position. Nevertheless, Race 1 highlighted a significant improvement in terms of race pace and the Hungarian was much happier with her car, which she described as “almost running on rails” after qualifying.
For the reverse-grid format launched this year, Nazim Azman was starting from pole, having finished sixth on Saturday. Alongside the Malaysian driver, Van AMersfoort Racing’s Caspar Stevenson had the better getaway when the lights went out and dived down the inside at Turn one to take the lead of the race. Behind them, championship newcomers Joshua Durksen and Cem Bolukbasi swapped places for third and fourth – with the Paraguayan racer ultimately dropping to fifth.
This left Stevenson in the position of extending his gap to over two seconds after the first lap, while Mason ran across the dirt at the chicane and Jak Crawford, started from P12 after a messy first race, charged back.
Starting from 11th on the grid, Vivien Keszthelyi held position and tried to attack Zdenek Chovanec at the end of the first lap - but the nature of the Hungaroring meant that she had to back off.
Saturday winner Cem Bolukbasi (Van Amersfoort Racing) slotted into third place and Crawford managed to jump ahead of Rafael Villagomez when the latter had to pit with damage, following a contact.
Just like in the first race, the first laps were rather chaotic, but then the dust settled and positions were consolidated: Stevenson held a safe gap, with Azman initially holding up Bolukbasi, then managing a controlled run in second.
In the second half of the race, penalties were handed out to Chovanec and Mason for jumping the start, and a 3-second time penalty for track limits also hit the recovering Jak Crawford, who had already made it to P6 and was following Durksen closely.
Vivien Keszthelyi had meanwhile a solid gap on Enzo Scionti and was getting closer to Chovanec in ninth, as she had to remain within five seconds to grab P9 once the penalty was applied.
Championship leader Cameron Das (Motopark) started from the back after yesterday’s retirement but remained at the tail end of the pack for most of the race. Towards the closing stages, he started to set fastest laps and caught up with Scionti, ultimately passing his compatriot.
With Durksen and Crawford locked in a race-long battle for fifth, the Drivex racer made a mistake into Turn 12 and locked up, but it wasn’t enough for Crawford to clinch the position on track
From lap 15, Vivien Keszthelyi had a series of really fast laps that allowed the young woman to close up with Chovanec and Kaminiarz ahead.
After a rather lonely race, Stevenson took his maiden victory in the series – the second for Van Amersfoort this weekend – ahead of Nazim Azman and the impressive rookie Cem Bolukbasi. Louis Foster was fourth but bagged important points for the championship with Das outside the point-paying positions: the Briton is now only three points behind Das.
Durksen had another strong race in fifth and held off Crawford – who maintained sixth despite the penalty from Mason. Vivien Keszthelyi bounced back after a difficult day on Saturady and was ninth, scoring valuable points and with a race left later today to build on the momentum in front of her home fans.
The Euroformula Open third race will go green at 14:35.
