Photo: Polestar Cyan Racing

Nicky Catsburg emerges as Monteiro’s closest rival after strong weekend in Hungary

Polestar Cyan Racing’s Nicky Catsburg left the Hungaroring second in the championship, continuing his run of points finishes, now with his first podium of the year in Race 2 with second, and is now also second in the standings, 38 points behind Honda’s Tiago Monteiro.

“I’ve had no wins yet, but I hope there’s more to come,” said Catsburg to TouringCarTimes.

“We’re doing a good job scoring points and finishing races, and now we’re finally on the podium. I had a fantastic start, possibly the best of my WTCC career, and that helped me to pass Rob (Huff) and Esteban (Guerrieri) straight away. Unfortunately I had a hit from behind which I guess was Rob, and I went into my team-mate (Néstor Girolami).

“This is really unfortunate for him – he deserves some luck, he’s showing speed and working really hard.”

After Rob Huff was served a drive-through penalty for the incident, Catsburg was now up to second place in the race, following the Citroën of Mehdi Bennani.

“I could follow Mehdi for the whole race, but he didn’t go any big mistakes, he went off twice, but I couldn’t get past. But I’m very happy with what we are achieving with full weight; we’re fighting with the Citroens with 20kg more than them, which is good.”