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Fighting Palmer overcomes misfortune to retain Formula Renault Eurocup lead in Hungary

Will Palmer retained the Formula Renault Eurocup championship lead at the Hungaroring this weekend, following a battling display at the triple-header, in which he shrugged aside technical woes on Saturday to return to the podium and limit the damage in Sunday's races.

The R-ace GP driver's Saturday was blighted by electrical issues which prevented him from achieving representative lap times in the first qualifying session, resulting in 22nd position on the grid for the first of the three races. Amidst the hectic opening exchanges, BRDC Superstar Palmer coolly scythed through the field to sit in 12th position after just five laps.

Before Will could make any further progress however, a recurrence of his earlier issues demoted him to 24th place. Unfortunately, a lengthy safety car period denied Will the opportunity to regain much of the lost ground and, with just handful of the race's 25 minutes remaining upon the resumption, he only had enough time to rise to 18th position.

Such was Will's advantage in the standings heading into the weekend; he maintained a Slender advantage from Robert Shwartzman with two races still to take place on Sunday.

Will lined up third on the grid for Sunday morning's second race, just behind championship rival Sacha Fenestraz and Gabriel Aubry. Will incisively surged past Fenestraz from the start to slot in behind Aubry in second place, a position he would hold comfortably until the end of the race, to further secure his position atop the championship standings.

Sixth place on the grid for the final race of the weekend was rapidly converted into fifth place on the road, after Will outmanoeuvred Ye Yifei in a wheel-to-wheel duel through the opening corners of the race. From this point, Will produced a smooth drive to the flag to secure his second strong points finish of the day.

As the chequered flag fell on the final race, Will was promoted to fourth position following a 10-second penalty for Fenestraz, who jumped the start, allowing him to extend his margin over the Frenchman, whilst remaining ahead of team-mate Shwartzman by five points.

Will said: "We had a weekend of two halves at Budapest. For Saturday, we had an electrical problem causing me to lose throttle power, which meant I had to start towards the back for race one as I wasn't able to do a representative lap-time in qualifying. I was recovering well in the race, up to twelfth and just outside the points after only five laps, but then the problem recoccured, causing me to fall back so I was unable to score.

"The team did a great job overnight to resolve the issue and we had a much better Sunday. For race two, I started third and managed to gain a place on the first lap to move into second which I held until the end. In race three, starting from sixth, I gained a place at the start and then benefitted from a penalty for a false start in front to finish fourth and gain good points for the championship. 

Will is back in action when the series resumes at the world-famous Nurburgring in Germany on 15-16 July, when the series will revert to its traditional two-race format.

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