Vitantonio Liuzzi won the first race today at the Hungaroring. The Mercedes driver took his second win of the season ahead of BMW’s Thomas Biagi and local hero Norbert Michelisz, also driving a BMW M3. Former Grand Prix driver Christian Klien claimed fourth ahead of championship leader Johan Kristoffersson.
At the start Liuzzi retained the lead, while Michelisz was powerless to stop Biagi from overtaking. Behind them were Klien and Gianni Morbidelli, fifth in his Audi RS5. The Italian managed to pass the Austrian on the second lap and started chasing the leading trio.
In the meantime, team-mates Camilo Zurcher and Andrea Larini were fighting for sixth, ahead of championship leader Kristoffersson.
On the third lap there was major drama in the first corner as Max Pigoli hit Stefano Gabellini, which meant both cars were out after the contact. Meanwhile Morbidelli passed Michelisz for third and Kristoffersson went up to seventh by passing Larini. The Swede later overtook Zurcher as well, who made a big slide whilst trying to defend from the Audi RS5.
As Biagi was all over Liuzzi, Morbidelli was stopped by an electrical problem and had to park his car trackside. That promoted Michelisz to third, but the Hungarian had to defend hard from Klien, who was challenging his podium spot in his Maserati.
No more drama was to happen; Liuzzi took his second win of the season and reduced the gap to Kristoffersson to just seven points. Biagi, who finished a close second, is now third in the championship, 11 points shy of Kristoffersson. Michelisz claimed the final podium spot in front of his home crowd, ahead of series rookie Christian Klien and Johan Kristoffersson, who finished in fifth and will now have to make the best use out of the reverse grid for the second race, which starts at 16.15.
