He finally broke his duck! In GP2 round seven at the Hungaroring near Budapest Daniel Abt celebrated his so far most successful weekend in his GP2 career and demonstrated his skills by taking two fifth places. In total, the 21-year-old scored 16 championship points in Hungary.
Abt started the main race on Saturday from 14th place and thus had the same prerequisites as in the disappointing home round at the Hockenheimring the week before. But this time the tactics panned out. During a safety car period on lap five Abt’s team Hilmer Motorsport reacted at lightning speed and switched to the hard tyres during the mandatory pit stop.
In his 612-hp Dallara Mecachrome Abt afterwards tenaciously battled his way forwards and crossed the finish line in sixth place – merely 5.111 seconds behind the winner, Arthur Pic. A time penalty for Stefano Coletti ultimately even made the only German in the field finish in fifth place. Abt was subsequently modest: “After qualifying, we didn’t have optimum prerequisites. Fifth place is a decent result, but in terms of speed it’s not enough yet for the very front.”
With a few adjustments to the set-up Abt started the sprint race on Sunday from grid position four. After the top three had produced an early gap to the vanguard chasing them Abt battled for fourth place with Nathanël Berthon, but in the end had to admit defeat to the Frenchman in fifth place by 0.569 seconds. “It was a solid result,” said Abt. “The 16 points were important in order to really motivate everybody in the team for the last four races once. In the short summer break we’re going to recharge our batteries a bit and will get together to see how we can close the gap to the top as quickly as possible.”
The driver from Kempten will be travelling to GP2 round eight at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium from 22 to 24 August.
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