Volvo chases Chevrolet in Hungaroring test

In a cloudy and windy afternoon, Robert Dahlgren and his Volvo nearly created a surprise in the first outing ever of the WTCC at the Hungaroring.

With three minutes left in the half-an-hour test session, the Swedish driver posted a provisional fastest lap of 1:57.396, jumping ahead of the BMW 320 TC cars of local hero Norbert Michelisz (1:57.551) and Proteam’s Javier Villa (1:57.664).

However, it was only a short-lived glory for Dahlgren who was demoted to fourth position by the Chevrolet trio of Alain Menu, Rob Huff and Yvan Muller when they completed their last lap just before the chequered flag dropped.
Menu clocked the fastest lap of 1:56.858, less than two tenths faster than Huff’s 1:57.044; Muller was third fastest in 1:57.203.

Darryl O’Young, Tom Coronel, Mehdi Bennani and Tiago Monteiro filled the positions from seven to ten right behind Dahlgren, Michelisz and Villa.

All the three SR turbo cars of Pepe Oriola (14th), Fredy Barth (16th) and Michel Nykjær (no lap time) suffered from engine problems as the SUNRED team were working hard to finish assembling the cars.

The WTCC field will hit the track again tomorrow for the usual two 30-minute free practices and the 30-minute qualifying.