FIA F3

Hungaroring: Alexander Rossi event summary

Rossi Scores Another GP3 Win in Hungary Budapest, Hungary - August 3, 2010 - After a difficult start to the weekend, ART Grand Prix driver, Alexander Rossi grinds it out, scoring his 2nd convincing GP3 Series victory, Sunday from pole. The ...

Published: Aug 6, 2010, 5:33 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Rossi Scores Another GP3 Win in Hungary

Budapest, Hungary - August 3, 2010 - After a difficult start to the weekend, ART Grand Prix driver, Alexander Rossi grinds it out, scoring his 2nd convincing GP3 Series victory, Sunday from pole. The American led the entire event capitalizing on pole position for round 12 after finishing 8th in round 11 while supporting Formula 1 in Budapest, Hungary.

"After some misfortune this season it was good to have a nice, clean run on Sunday and grab my second win," said Rossi. "It was a bit of a relief for everyone involved in my career. We needed it, and the ART car allowed me to do my job. This was the perfect momentum shift for the rest of the season."

"Alexander did a good job this weekend following a difficult qualifying", stated Nicolas Todt, ART Grand Prix Co Owner. "He drove well and intelligently in race 1, taking a good and important win today in race 2, which is good for the championship. He now has to take big points in race 1, I'm sure he can do it."

Rossi having prior success at the Hungaroring, finishing 3rd in 2009 while competing in International Formula Master. This past weekend Rossi was looking for a counterpoint to difficult rounds 9 and 10 in Hockenheim just the week before. In Hungary free practice, Rossi was mid-field again, returning to pit lane twice and losing valuable time due to a technical problem.

"After no points in Hockenheim I was a bit concerned for the weekend in free practice", Rossi added. "I'm glad we were able to score the points we did this weekend and remain in the fight for 2nd in the championship."

For Saturday qualifying, Rossi was initially right on the pace with the first set of tires.

"The car felt very good, and for the first ten minutes I was able to trade fast laps with three or four other drivers," continued Rossi. "During the second stint and second set of tires I was unable to put in a clean lap without a local yellow or traffic. I was a bit unlucky I suppose, but everyone else had to deal with the same circumstances."

Rossi finished qualifying a disappointing 13th, 7/10ths off the quick pole time set by Nico Muller. "I was not happy with qualifying but was confident with my ability to make up positions in race traffic," Rossi said. "Everybody knows that Budapest is a difficult circuit to pass on, but I was confident with my experience from 2009 in Formula Master that I would be able to make the most of the situation, especially going into turn one."

True to his reputation, Alexander jumped from 13th to 7th on the opening lap of Saturday's race. Despite these gains, however, a new problem arose. "Whenever I would put g-loading onto the car, through the corners, the car had excess roll and would bottom out very heavily, Rossi stated. "This made the car very unstable and unpredictable to drive and we were given a gift when we were able to inherit 8th place."

Rossi lost valuable time due to bottoming, losing two positions to Josef Newgarden and to Felix da Costa. Lying ninth during final lap, Rossi inherited 8th when Mirko Bortolotti ran out of fuel just meters before the checker flag, earning the pole position for round 12 on Sunday's reverse grid.

Rossi made a good launch from the pole on Sunday next to fellow countryman Josef Newgarden, starting P2. Rossi protected turn 1 and by the end of a brilliant first lap, Rossi had opened up a 1.6 second gap.

"This was a different race car com," Rossi stated. "I must thank my team for doing such a fantastic job overnight. "I knew on the warm up lap that I had a good car underneath me and I thank ART for their efforts Saturday evening. Everybody stayed quite late to insure that we would have the best opportunity on Sunday and this showed through ten fold."

Having established a healthy lead and controlling the race from start to finish. Alexander won Round 12, five seconds in front of Canadian, Robert Wickens.

"It was great to be back on top of the podium again and hear my national anthem," Rossi admitted. "For the most part it's been a tough year, but this win goes some of the way towards redressing the balance. We have two events left and we plan to carry this momentum forward in order to retake second place in the overall standings."

After the August break, during which Rossi will train at home back in California, GP3 Series continues at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. "Spa is one of my favorite circuits and is a very special place for me," says Rossi. Last year, driving for ISR in International Formula Masters, Rossi won during the Belgium Grand Prix.

Rossi currently lies 4th in Championship with 33 points, and 2 wins. The next rounds of the GP3 Championship take place, August 27th- August 29th at Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium, alongside GP2 and Formula 1.

-source: alexanderrossi.com

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Hungaroring: Esteban Gutierrez race 1 report

Next article Spa: Alexander Rossi preview

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Why NASCAR's indecision led to Dodge's decision to return to Cup

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Martinsville II

2 h

Why NASCAR's indecision led to Dodge's decision to return to Cup

Dodge announces return to NASCAR Cup Series in 2027

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup 6 h

Dodge announces return to NASCAR Cup Series in 2027

Justin Allgaier confirms he will return for 2027 NASCAR O'Reilly season

NASCAR O'Reilly

NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly

Martinsville II

6 h

Justin Allgaier confirms he will return for 2027 NASCAR O'Reilly season

NASCAR Cup Homestead finale to feature full field of 40 cars

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Martinsville II

9 h

NASCAR Cup Homestead finale to feature full field of 40 cars

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts