Tom Sharp brought a busy spell in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup to a close with a battling drive to a top twenty finish during his second ever race meeting at the Hungaroring this past weekend (28/29 July). 

The technical Hungaroring circuit, located thirteen miles outside the nation’s capital Budapest, is a tricky one to master in the 485bhp Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars, and Sharp returned aiming to banish the demons of a frustrating early retirement there on his first visit twelve months ago.

Completing a hectic run of four meetings in five weekends, Sharp and his family IDL Racing team got the meeting underway with a single forty-five minute practice session on Friday, which gave them the chance to work on their car set-up for the 2.72 mile circuit.

After finishing twentieth fastest in that session, Sharp would make a big step forwards with his lap-times in qualifying on Saturday as an effort of 1m 48.324s put him sixteenth fastest, continuing his record of finishing in the top twenty in every qualifying session so far this season.

The Surrey racer would line up on the grid for Sunday’s race in front of a huge crowd enjoying the sweltering sunshine, with live television coverage of the race on Sky Sports F1 and Eurosport mere hours away from the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix.

A tricky start saw Sharp slip to eighteenth in the opening laps prior to an early safety car period, but after the restart he settled into a run of competitive lap-times as he kept tabs on the pack ahead, with his efforts rewarded as he moved up to seventeenth place prior to the finish.

With a third top twenty finish of the campaign under his belt, the Dome Group, Anord Mardix, Lloret, GBE Services and Aapex Wealth Management backed driver now has a small break before returning to action at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium on August 24-26.

Tom Sharp: “It was a difficult weekend from start-to-finish unfortunately. We couldn’t seem to find the sweet spot with the car around a very technical circuit, and in a field as competitive as the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup’s, we were left battling lower on the grid than we want to be.

“We made improvements across the weekend though and seventeenth was a decent result in the circumstances. The recent spell of meetings has been tough for us and we’re looking forward to a few weekends off, so we can get ourselves in a good position for Spa.”

ENDS

The images included are from Porsche AG/Hoch Zwei. Click on the images for high-resolution versions. Please credit where used.