BUDAPEST WEEKEND ANALYSIS: How Fornaroli caught up with his title rivals

For Leonardo Fornaroli, the Budapest weekend could not have gone much better. A fifth podium of the season along with a handful of points have put him firmly back into title contention.

Sitting in fourth place coming into the weekend, the Trident driver was not out of the title race, but with the gap to Gabriele Minì standing at 26 points and having had a difficult couple of rounds, the Italian could be forgiven for being worried.

After finishing third in the Barcelona Feature Race and going to the top of the Drivers’ Championship with 84 points, Fornaroli scored just nine points in the two rounds that followed in Spielberg and Silverstone.

READ MORE: Fornaroli confident heading to Spa after ‘positive’ Budapest weekend

A track limits violation at the Red Bull Ring relegated him to near the back of the grid and forced him to fight through the field, while late rain at the British venue dropped him from the podium to P7.

At the same time, title rivals jumped ahead of him as Arvid Lindblad completed the double at Silverstone, while Luke Browning won the Feature Race in Spielberg and Minì added two more podiums to his tally.

But in all of this, Fornaroli found a way to achieve the maximum result possible.

He did that again in Budapest while his rivals hit trouble. He kept things simple and has now closed the gap to Minì to just seven points. But how did he do it?

QUALIFYING

The Hungaroring is notoriously a difficult place to overtake so Qualifying takes on huge importance. However, Fornaroli, did not have the best start, ending up in P22 after his first lap.

Trident had sent Fornaroli out on track at the front of the queue for the first run, but chose to give him more space for his second lap, putting him out much later than any of his rivals.

So, while there was a queue forming in the last sector, Fornaroli would miss all of that and could have a clean run without traffic on his flying lap, although he risked a yellow or Red Flag stopping his progress.

READ MORE: Philippe urges ART to keep pushing after Tsolov’s Budapest victory

As the last to cross the lines he would get the best of the track conditions and with a 1:34.173, he went to the top of the leaderboard by 0.001s over Noel León. This time would prove critical as when it came to the third lap, Fornaroli was 0.023s off his previous attempt.

Explaining afterwards: “It was a very tricky session. I actually struggled to understand the car due to the hot temperatures. It was very unpredictable. On set one I had made a mistake in Sector 3, so I wasn't feeling too good.

“On set two I think I did quite a decent job I managed to put a decent lap together. Then on the third set I thought I was going to improve but like set one, I felt again that it was difficult because during the warmup procedure I was stuck behind a lot of cars.

“So, we had to change at the last second the warmup procedure. I think we were not in the window with the tyres, so this made my lap even more difficult.”

But what Fornaroli did was get three clean laps in, something his rivals did not, as Browning crashed into the barrier at Turn 11 on his last flying lap, bringing out the Red Flags.

This meant that Minì, Dino Beganovic, Arvid Lindblad, and Oliver Goethe, who were all behind the Hitech Pulse-Eight driver, could not complete their laps.

FEATURE RACE: Tsolov takes third win of 2024 in ART 1-2 finish

Each of them had set personal best first sectors, with Beganovic the fastest of all before being caught up in the stoppage.

Finding space and getting clean laps on the board, even if they were not his best put Fornaroli in a strong position for the weekend.

SPRINT RACE

Starting 10th, Fornaroli made a good start to go to P8 before overtaking teammate Sami Meguetounif at Turn 1 on Lap 4 to move up to seventh. He would finish in that position while Beganovic went from starting on reverse grid pole to finishing third.

His fellow title hopeful Christian Mansell finished in fifth, while Browning had fought through from P15 to end up in eighth. Minì had qualified in P13 and raced to P14, while Goethe moved up to P11 from P14, as Lindblad ended up in 15th after starting 21st.

FEATURE RACE

The big points for Fornaroli would come in the Sunday race although things did not go his way.

He made an outstanding start from third but got boxed in by the two ART Grand Prix cars ahead of him in Nikola Tsolov and Laurens van Hoepen, giving León the chance to take third.

As mentioned, the Hungaroring is a difficult place to overtake so while Fornaroli felt he had the pace, he could not get past the Van Amersfoort Racing driver.

READ MORE: Round 9 thoughts from the Top 3

While that was a disappointment, it wasn’t as catastrophic as it might have seemed at the time. Having started deeper in the pack, none of the drivers above him in the Championship, be it Minì, Browning or Lindblad, could quite make it into the points paying positions.

The Italian driver had already made big gains on them by finishing fourth but when van Hoepen was disqualified post-race for his car being underweight, Fornaroli was promoted to third.

This gave him 18 points, while the other big gainer in the title fight was Mansell behind him in fourth.

The key part of this is that in a Championship with such small margins, being in the right place at the right time can make a substantial difference, as can just keeping it clean.

There are still two rounds to go, so who knows where this title could go, but the Italian has put himself right back into the mix and at a crucial time too.