Budapest was an interesting race and by the time the drivers went on their way, a lot of fine tuning was made by the grid. Siegfried Happe on the other hand didn’t seem to be in the right mindset, as he started to prepare too late and not enough on yesterday’s track which put him at the back of the grid for the start. “that’s alright”, he assured us right at the last minute before getting into the car, “This track is quite dangerous, so I will just hang on get some temperature in the tyres and make the best of it.” Not very promising from the german driver who is now under new backing by the Hermann Werner GmbH & Co.KG, a german manufacturer of tools.

At the start of the race, Happe and Surves car in the front stalled, which meant, they would have their merry time to catch up – but also miss the action and crashes is front, that could’ve potentially taken them out aswell. Lap one saw a few crashes and by Lap 2, Happe made up 5 places already. Very much alone from a pace perspective – Happe and Aditya switched around a few times in the first sector of the track, while maintaining a low 2:40 – 2:44 range on the watches.

It also came down to strategy: On the good note: Happes car held until the end – the bad part? He tried everything to make a malfunction happen. 3-4 times he overshot long flowing turns tapping the wall, as we heard from spectators, one time almost going over the wall in the Maserati 8CM. When he did get a groove into the car, it was time for the pitstop in between the 15th and 16th lap of this 30 lap race.

The pitting lane seems stressful today, since we saw one car being in there at almost every Lap, which is why Happe from lap 10 to lap 15 made up another 3 places just for driving relatively slow times. After the pits and with the rest amount of fuel needed for the finish – Happe started to get faster, making a difference of 4-5 seconds every lap compared to his first half of the race.

“It came down to practice, of which i unfortunately didn’t have enough. It’s nobody fault but mine today – if I would’ve practiced more on Budapest in the last days, I think 2 places up would be the result. I will have to think more clearly about preparation, especially with Donington Park coming up.” said Happe after his still quite good finish in 8th position.

“Although we raced cleanly, ego in the later part of the race became my curse. I was too confident in beating Heru Lah in the same machinery, when I saw, that he was driving 3-4 seconds slower. One early braking point from him on the last turn set my car sideways into a tree. I was lucky to continue and survive such a fast impact.”

A brush with disaster nearly ended his day late in the race. Overly confident in reeling in rival Heru Lah, Happe misjudged a braking point and was sent sideways into a tree at speed. Remarkably, both car and driver survived the impact, allowing him to finish.

In the end, 8th place from an 18-car grid and ten positions gained from the start should be considered a success. Yet for Happe, the result seemed to highlight what might have been, rather than what was achieved.