Maxime Martin surprised to be on the podium after difficult weekend

BMW Motorsport driver Maxime Martin drove a charging race at the Hungaroring to achieve a podium finish after a tough weekend.

The Belgian had technical and balance issues that hampered his progress on Friday and Saturday, having to retire from Race 1 after a collision with team-mate Blomqvist, getting a three-place grid drop for Sunday’s race. Having qualified in 16th position, the penalty put Martin at the back of the grid.

Martin pitted at the end of lap one: “I had lots of technical problems during the weekend and, given where I was starting the race from, I had nothing to lose,” the Belgian told TouringCarTimes. “It’s in these occasions when you have to do something different and that’s why we came up with an aggressive strategy.”

The Team RBM driver worked his way through the field and, by lap 13, he was up to fourth place. Martin didn’t make any use of the DRS during the race: “I couldn’t use the DRS in most occasions because I was running alone in the pack. Then I was in third place, but wasn’t within the DRS window, so it wasn’t necessary for me.”

At the chequered flag, Martin took his first podium of the year: “I focussed on doing my part and did my race without making mistakes. Certainly, this is not the result we were expecting after such a tough weekend, so I’m very happy to have overcome all our technical problems and be on the podium.”

BMW Motorsport Director Jens Marquardt praised Martin’s performance: “I think we covered the whole field today, we had drivers in the top positions and drivers at the back. Maxime did a fantastic job today, carried the strategy perfectly. He had a consistent speed and continued moving ahead with all the stops that came later. He and his team did a fantastic job, we can see that the potential is there, so we have to find a way to extract it for all the others.”