“I felt pretty decent – the braking, the turning, everything. The car felt it’s on rails - so I definitely felt like there is some potential to bring it up and improve.” – Local hero Vivien Keszthelyi gets ready to start her first F3 race on home soil: she will start from P11 after an engine change overnight.
Vivien Keszthelyi will start her first race in single-seaters on home soil in P11, after setting a 1:35.613 in this morning’s Euroformula qualifying at Hungaroring. The Hungarian racing star was a lot happier with her car today, after engine issues hampered her practice sessions on Friday. Keszthelyi was eleventh in both FP1 and FP2 but had limited amount of track time as she reported to be missing speed on the straight and, in particular, in third gear. With team Motopark’s fantastic job overnight, the engine of the #77 Dallara F320 was replaced in time for qualifying. Keszthelyi was up to eighth place mid-way through the session, then finishing P11 at the chequered flag with significant improvements in terms of margin once on new tyres. “After the test we were running quite a bit on used tyres, so I didn’t have the feeling yesterday on how it was on new tyres.” - she told us after qualifying. “I felt pretty decent – the braking, the turning, everything. The car felt it’s on rails - so I definitely felt like there is some potential to bring it up and improve.” “I still have to improve in different parts in my driving, but the car is just amazing. Yesterday we had to change the engine, as we were missing quite some speed on the straights” - she explained. “Everything went really well now, we have to check the data where to improve, but compared to ourselves we made mega steps.” Pole position went to Motopark’s Jak Crawford, who finished three tenths ahead of fellow countryman and teammate Cameron Das. Crawford and Joshua Durksen alternated at the top of the timing screens in the early stages, as the driver from Paraguay – at his series debut – is looking strong after Friday practice. Durksen, who is also racing in the Italian F4 championship, ultimately ended in P7 after the last round of pit stops for new tyres. It will be Louis Foster (Crypto Tower Racing Team) to start from the second row of the grid this afternoon, alongside Rafael Villagomez. Turkish racer Cem Bolukbasi, also making his first Euroformula appearance at the Hungaroring after competing in the Asian F3 winter championship, topped FP1 and was fifth in qualifying after another impressive performance. He will share the third row with Van Amersfoort Racing’s teammate Casper Stevenson. Vivien Keszthelyi is thus looking forward to making more progress into the three races at her home track, after enjoying her best weekend so far at Spa Francorchamps. The 20-year old former W Series driver has accumulated relevant GT experience through the years, but only ventured in formula cars in 2019. The stop in 2020 cost her some track time compared to her fellow competitors, but the young driver showed good progression throughout her first full-season in F3 cars, with six point-scoring results so far. Euroformula Open’s first race from Hungaroring will get underway at 14:10 local time.