Bruno Spengler relieved after first podium of the season

BMW Motorsport’s Bruno Spengler drove a recovering race to score his first podium of the season and first in 10 months, at the Hungaroring.

The Canadian from Team RBM was on the last row of the grid after a difficult qualifying session: “We were very unlucky in qualifying,” the Canadian told TouringCarTimes. “We had good pace but we were late coming out for my second run, so the chequered flag was out before I could start my final flying lap, so I was 17th in the end.”

Spengler made his first pit stop at the end of lap one: “When you start so far back you have to take a chance in order to make some progress, so we decided to do something different with the strategy.”

The 2012 champion made a second stop as the safety car came out on track, a decision Spengler thinks is key to his final result. “The safety car came out at the right time for us to be able to play with the strategy. I have to congratulate the mechanics as they did two great tyre changes for me. In the final laps I had to defend from Rockenfeller (Audi), the team was telling me the distance from the pit board and every lap was like a countdown, he was taking whole seconds every time. So I’m glad my tyres weren’t older because, if the race would have been two laps longer, I would have been in a bad place and losing a lot of ground.”

Bruno Spengler hopes to continue getting good results tomorrow: “The day was good and now we have good momentum as a team, but it’s important to go back, see the data and work hard for tomorrow, so we can continue scoring points.”