Photo: TCR Europe

TCR World Tour debutant Volt reprimanded for practice clash at Hungaroring

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ALM Motorsport’s Ruben Volt has not had a great start to his TCR World Tour debut, clashing with a competitor in practice and then getting reprimanded.

The Estonian teenager got his first taste of ALM’s FL5-spec Honda Civic Type R TCR on Friday morning in first practice at the Hungaroring. He went ninth fastest, 1.996 seconds off the ultimate pace and 1.405s behind team-mate Néstor Girolami.

Heavy rain delayed the start of second practice in the afternoon, which took place on a wet track.

“It was raining at some points quite heavily, but I think [it was right to delay].” Volt said to TouringCarTimes. “Probably not that much after the first bit of heavy rain. I think after that it should have been green flag.”

However it was spray from other cars that he found more of an issue than track grip, and during the session he had a clash with Comtoyou Racing’s Rob Huff. It resulted in an investigation and a summoning to the stewards, then a formal reprimand, and Volt put the incident down to a lack of visibility.

“Every windscreen and everything was just fogging up really bad,” he explained. “I couldn’t see any mirrors.”

Volt was also struggling to get a consistent feeling from the car in the evolving conditions, and ended up 4.391s off the pace in 16th place.

“We’re working on it. Because it’s my first time in the car, so it’s quite tough, but we’ll manage it.”

Huff also gave TouringCarTimes his view of the clash.

“I was catching the Honda of Volt, and I think the Hyundai of Mikael Karlsson. They were getting blue flags in the last sector because I was catching them, flashing the lights, and then the Hyundai went wide here [at turn 13]. So that was one out of the way.

“Then with Volt, I was flashing him, got on the inside of turn one, then got back on the inside of turn two, and then between turns two and three he was fully on the right and he just came across.

“So they’ve given him a reprimand. I know he didn’t mean to do it. He says the windows were completely fogged up and everything, not so easy for him.”