Media Centre, Hungaroring, 16h15, Saturday 27 April 2019
In attendance:Néstor Girolami, ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport, first position
Yvan Muller, Cyan Racing Lynk & Co, second position
Esteban Guerrieri, ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport, third position
Attila Tassi, KCMG
Invited guests:FIA Girls on Track participants
Q:A fantastic start for you, Néstor, and you kept your cool to win your first race over 12 laps. Just explain how it feels.
NG:Welcome everybody. I’m extremely happy to win my first race in Budapest. You know what? My first time in a touring car in Europe was here in 2015 and it was just going through my mind that my first win was here too, so Budapest is something special for me. I’d like to congratulate Yvan for second place and my team-mate Esteban Guerrieri – he won in Marrakech and I’ve won here, so an amazing way to start the season. And also the team, ALL-INKL.COM did a fantastic job and we have a really strong car. We improved quite a lot in the pre-season and this is paying off quite a lot now. So we are proud of that and we have to keep putting the hard work in. This championship is so tight and everybody is playing the same game, so we have to be quick and smart and I think we did a really good job today on this side.

Q:Yes, a very good job. Just explain some of the emotions in that car because you had huge pressure from the world’s most successful touring car driver, you had to convert that pole position into a victory. Just how much pressure was there?
NG:I’ll be honest, after qualifying we were thinking quite a lot about the start. In my case, in Marrakech I didn’t really have a good one and this guy, they had a really good moment in the start. So I probably did my best start ever to keep the position because I knew if I kept the position there it would probably be 99 or 98 per cent of the race there. So after the start I realised my position, my first place, could be until the end. It was like this. It has been really hard to adapt to WTCR, everything is completely new for me and these guys have more experience, probably 10 times in Budapest and this is my third time. Every track is going to be almost new for me.
Q:Yvan, you have won here in the past, but today not quite the victory. Still, you finally have that podium you have been chasing.
YM:Yes, absolutely. After Marrakech, where I did twice P2 in qualifying I didn’t even make the end of the race, at least here I am there on the podium. Not bad for an old man! I was retired two years ago…
Q:More than not bad. The team is new to the series with a new car. Just explain the work that has gone in to achieve this result.
YM:Yeah, as you can see since the beginning of the season the Lynk & Co car is among the top five cars. We fight a lot, we work hard of course, the line-up in the team is good and the factor of all the drivers pushes all the drivers up and it’s a big help, and then we have all the mechanics and engineers to help us a lot. The level of this championship is very high, all professional people and professional drivers, so if you want to fight for the victory you need to be on the top and be focused on what you have to do.

Q:Esteban, it’s the second consecutive year you’ve been involved in an ALL-INKL.COM one-three. Pre-season your team came here to do some testing. How significant was that in the result today?
EG:Hello everyone, and well done to Néstor. It’s a real pleasure to have him here winning. I’m really happy for him. Also to Yvan who’s done a very good job. Yes, it helps because it was the second track we tested at in the pre-season and here we found some good stuff that we tried in these consistent long corners and we found that consistency and speed, which is what we expected to have here. The pre-season was a very good, smart way of working, it gave us a good start to the season, so I’m very happy so far. The Honda Civic has worked very good on two different types of track, like Marrakech with its short corners and here with its long ones. Thanks to Honda who are here with us also supporting. It’s a great way to start, I’m very happy. It’s been a long time since I led a championship, I was making my counts and it’s since 2012 in Indy Lights. That was the last time I led a championship, so I will try to keep it this way.
Q:Attila, congratulations. This is your first home point in WTCR after getting that place on the final lap. Just explain what happened.
AT:That final lap was really intense. I had a chance to improve my position, but I didn’t think I would because I had the damage from Mehdi [Bennani] who closed the door on my in Turn 13 and I had my steering wheel pointing 90 degrees to the left, so I couldn’t turn easily in the left corners and it made the job really hard. So I decided to give up the place and keep the 15th position, and take the point. On the slow down lap I got a puncture, so it was really on the edge and I’m really happy to score a point.

Questions from the floor:
Q Anna Glaerum, FIA Girls on Track):What are your thoughts about your efforts?
YM:I am pleased with my race. If you were here yesterday and saw FP1 last evening, we were quite far away, all the Lynk & Co cars and to be honest, we were very worried. We stayed here until 11pm last night to try to find the way. This morning when we came we were not optimistic at all, but we found some of the time, so I’m pleased for that. During the race, it was pretty good. I tried to attack Néstor, but I was sometimes under pressure from Estaban, so it’s never easy to race with those kind of guys. They can attack you at any time, but that is exciting and it was a great race.
Q (Maja H. Fellenius, FIA Girls on Track):How does it compare to Marrakech?
YM:They are very difficult circuits. Marrackech is a city circuit where there are some kerbs to jump and here it’s a bit faster, although not much faster, but it is a different style of circuit with long corners and the drop of the tyre is very big compared to Marrakech. There we can do two or three laps in a row all at the same lap time. Here normally after one lap the lap time goes down, so you have to be focused on the first lap, in qualifying especially, to do your time there because you don’t get a second chance.
Q (Peter Vamosi, Racingline.hu, Hungary):To the Argentinian drivers, is it possible to team up for the Race of Champions if it is in Argentina?
EG:First of all, it would be good to have a WTCR race in Argentina. It is something we are pushing for. If it is possible to have the Race of Champions there it would be great, yeah, why not?
NG:It would be fantastic. In Argentina, we love motor sport. Now is the World Rally Championship in Argentina and it would be great if we could have these kind of races. It would be great to be in a team with Esteban as well.