Browning looking to repeat charge through the field after Sprint Race points

After a setback following Qualifying that relegated him down to P15 on the grid, Luke Browning put on a defiant showing to score important points in the Budapest Sprint Race.

The Hitech Pulse-Eight driver made his way up to eighth position by the chequered flag around a notoriously tricky to overtake circuit in the Hungaroring.

Speaking after the race, Browning said that the pace he and Hitech showed across the board was a big plus after the tough end to Friday they experienced.

“Looking back on Qualifying, I think that was a tough decision. The Stewards have a tough job, but I think it was ruled out as being down to a mistake by myself. When there’s something down on the circuit and you go through it, it is what it is.

“So unfortunately, Qualifying was out of my hands but that’s irrelevant if there’s a Red Flag which caused the lap to be deleted.

“Getting onto the race, we had a bit of redemption to come, and we did just that I think.”

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Crucially for his title hopes, Browning was able to overtake leader in the Standings Gabriele Minì en route to the points, moving himself up second and closing the gap back down to just four points.

Fourth in the Championship Leonardo Fornaroli finished one place ahead of Browning in the Sprint but despite that, he was very satisfied with his efforts and the position it leaves him going into the Feature Race.

“Obviously, Leo is in a good position going into the rest of the year and it just brings the Championship closer.

“I think what’s quite good is that if we’d started where we qualified, we probably could have won the race and be in a great position going into tomorrow.

“I’ll be trying to do the same in the Feature, but we got a bit lucky here and there with some people hitting each other but the pace was super strong anyway.

“We overtook Minì in the Sprint Race and just had so much pace globally. To be honest, pace has never been an issue in my career, it’s everything else around that and then coming together which is the most difficult part.

“We’re being clever in the races, not doing anything stupid and I think just having this approach going forward will hopefully bring me the title in the end.”

Turning his attentions to the Feature Race on Sunday, Browning says he’s confident of a repeat performance and that an even stronger result could be on the cards with the longer race distance coming into play.

He also highlighted that while the DRS train made overtaking tricky, he was able to pull off moves regardless, fuelling his confidence further going into Sunday’s race.

“The DRS train made it really tough to overtake but we managed to do it twice. But then behind Leo, he’d saved his tyres really well and there wasn’t a whole lot I could do at the end.

“It’ll be interesting to see where we are tomorrow and see how other people’s pace goes. People are going to learn from this race, so it’ll be about whoever makes the biggest jump for tomorrow.

“It’s a slightly longer race tomorrow so there’s more time to make moves and hopefully work our way further forward. We were very quick globally, so I think any massive direction change would be silly.”