Fourth place at the Hungaroring: Vital points towards the championship
From the North Sea dunes to the Central European steppe: The Hungaroring, which is not all that far away from the Hungarian puszta, hosted the fifth race weekend of the 2016 Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup. Jeffrey Schmidt and Team Lechner Racing Middle East opted for a setup that would go easy on the tyres, calculating that this would be advantageous in race trim. However, a safety car deployment lasting five laps nullified their strategy, leaving them short of time to convert the chosen setup into a podium finish.
Jeffrey, your performance steadily improved from free practice through to the race itself. But are you ultimately satisfied with fourth place?
In fact, we went to Hungary aiming for a podium finish. After all, we tested here only recently and posted some fast times. However, we spent most of the weekend fine-tuning our overall package to compete with the front-runners. The first two were a bit faster, and I was unable to pose a threat to them. Consequently, fourth place is a quite a decent result considering we qualified fifth. I gained one position, but I couldn’t have done more.
The safety car didn’t really help…
It certainly didn’t! The safety car had to come out onto the track as early as the first lap, because there was a collision at the start. As a result, the race duration was shortened. On the few remaining laps, unfortunately, not a lot happened. The drivers in front of me were a little faster, while those behind were a lot slower. So I did my best to push forward, because the gap behind was big enough. We had chosen our setup to be good over the distance and allow us to be fast at the end of the race. The fact that I set my personal best lap shows that this strategy would otherwise have paid off.
Do you think that the outcome was already decided by Saturday’s qualifying?
Qualifying didn’t go optimally. This time, we failed to get it just right, and I made a minor error on both of my flying laps. With these tyres you only get one shot, and if it doesn’t go right, the level of competition here in the Supercup means that you immediately drop back to fourth or fifth. So on this one fast lap, you really have to give 105 percent, and you can’t allow even the tiniest of mistakes to creep in.
Are you able to regard this fourth place as damage limitation in terms of the championship?
Yes, because now there are only four points between the second-placed driver and me. Next week counts as my home race, because there is no other major circuit which we can get to quicker from Switzerland. We are optimistic, because I’ve had success there in the past. I’m expecting a lot this time! At the same time, I’m trying to reduce the amount of self-imposed pressure at the key moment and to focus on the essentials. And I’m managing to do that quite well.
What feelings do you associate with the Hockenheimring where the next round of the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup will be contested on the weekend of 29th – 31st July?
Very many positives. There will be a lot of Swiss fans there, cheering me on from the grandstands and no doubt waving flags too. I like the circuit for its layout. The alternation between the high-speed sections, tight hairpins and the technical part in the Motodrom at the end where we’re driving past the spectators is just fantastic. Because I’ve made podium appearances there in the last five Carrera Cup races, I’m looking forward to next weekend all the more. I know my way up to the podium pretty well, and I’d like to tread that route again on Sunday.
