Tough weekend for the Bäckman siblings at Hungaroring

The siblings Andreas and Jessica Bäckman drove this weekend the fourth round of the WTCR - FIA World Touring Car Cup in Hungary. It was the siblings' second competition on the track as they also competed there in 2019 in the TCR Europe series with good results. Despite this, it turned out to be a tough weekend for the siblings on the famous Formula 1 track Hungaroring.
-We are struggling to achieve the right settings on the car, for the car to behave the way we want it to, which makes it very difficult to drive, Jessica Bäckman says.

Hungaroring, located less than 20 kilometers northeast of Budapest, is famous for hosting the first Formula 1 race in 1986 and has always been on the F1 calendar ever since. The track Hungaroring has 14 both slow and fast corners that are technically advanced - here, among other things, the Hungarian Grand Prix in Formula 1 is run - and takes about 70,000 in the audience. Hungaroring's closeness to the Hungarian capital Budapest means that fans have the opportunity to enjoy both racing and explore the capital's attractions.

Last weekend, August 21-22st, the fourth round of the FIA WTCR series was held at the Hungaroring track, near Budapest, and the world's top elite drivers gathered to settle for new World Cup points. The Sweden National Team drivers Andreas and Jessica Bäckman from the North of Sweden took part in the starting field, competed for the Italian team Target Competition and it was the siblings' fourth competition weekend in WTCR.

Small margins in the Qualifying
The weekend started tough for the siblings during the free practice sessions and also during the qualifying, where Jessica qualified as 20th and Andreas fought hard to achieve a good time so he happened to cut the tire stack on the inside of corner 12 and the car broke down, therefore he qualified 23rd.

Sunday's two races offered tough racing, Jessica had problems with the starts and stalled in Race 2 and therefore lost a lot of time from the rest of the field, but still managed to catch them up and finished in 20th place in Race 1 and 21st place in Race 2.

- Tough weekend for the whole team, we are struggling to achieve the right settings on the car, for the car to behave the way we want it to. We were hoping for more speed this weekend considering we know the track well since we raced there in TCR Europe back in 2019 with good speed, Jessica Bäckman says.

Incident on the first lap for Andreas
Andreas raced his way up from 23rd place on the grid to finish 19th place in Race 1. In Race 2 he got a good start and managed to take many positions at the beginning of the race. Unfortunately, he got a hit into corner 3 on the first lap, which meant that he had to retire the race with a broken car.

- Challenging weekend, after my incident in the qualifying, the races got tougher since I had to start last. But I am happy about my start and first lap in Race 2 where I took many positions, just unlucky that I got the hit from behind and had to retire already on the first lap, Andreas Bäckmansays.

Next up is the fifth round of the WTCR-series, October 9th - 10th, at the Most-circuit in Czech Republic.

Andreas’ results:
Free Practice 1: 21st place
Free Practice 2: 20th place
Qualifying: 23rd place
Race 1: 19th place
Race 2: DNF

Jessica’s results:
Free Practice 1: 22nd place
Free Practice 2: 23rd place
Qualifying: 20th place
Race 1: 20th place
Race 2: 21st place




WTCR Series Standings

FIA World Touring Car Cup for Drivers WTCR – Overall (Top 3)
FIA WTCR 2021 (After 4 of 8 race weekends)

1: Yann Ehrlacher (FRA), 103 p.
2: Santiago Urrutia (URY), 101 p.
3: Jean-Karl Vernay (FRA), 87 p.
–
21: Jessica Bäckman (SWE), 2 p.
22: Andreas Bäckman (SWE), 1 p.

See the full standings here

WTCR Trophy – Overall (Top 3)
FIA WTCR 2021 (After 4 of 8 race weekends)

1: Gilles Magnus (BEL), 84 p.
2: Tom Coronel (NLD), 42 p.
3: Bence Boldizs (HUN), 35p
-
4: Jessica Bäckman (SWE), 32 p.
5: Andreas Bäckman (SWE), 27 p.

See the full standings here

FIA World Touring Car Cup for Junior Drivers – Overall (Top 3)
FIA WTCR 2021 (After 4 of 8 race weekends)

1: Gilles Magnus (BEL), 221 p.
2: Luca Engstler (DEU), 168 p.
3: Jessica Bäckman (SWE), 131 p.

See the full standings here

WTCR – FIA World Touring Car Cup for Teams – Overall (Top 3)
FIA WTCR 2021 (After 4 of 8 race weekends)

1: Cyan Racing Lynk & Co, 181 p.
2: Cyan Performance Lynk & Co, 174 p.
3: Comtoyou Team Audi Sport, 166 p.
–
11: Target Competition, 3 p.

See the full standings here

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