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STANDINGS
SPOTLIGHT
A crew of five people worked
throughout Saturday night at the
Hungaroring to repair a damaged car.
Their hard work was rewarded with a
podium finish in Sunday’s Race 2; the
first in the TCR International Series for
Jens Reno Møller and his Reno Racing
team.
Less than twenty-four hours earlier,
the Danish driver had made a mistake
that could have cost him dearly.
Having successfully made his way
through to Q2, Møller put his left
wheels on the kerb while braking at
the end of the main straight. His
Honda Civic swerved to the left and
crashed, head-on, into the barriers.
Møller was unhurt, but upset and
discouraged and said the team
wouldn’t even try to repair the
wrecked car. However, everything
changed when the Stewards disallowed
all Qualifying times from two other
drivers, which promoted Møller from
12th to 10th and so into pole position
on the reverse grid for Race 2.
“On Saturday afternoon we were
looking at a severely damaged car and
almost packing to go home… But then
JENS RENO MØLLER
From despair to delight
“It has been a fantastic comeback! I
made a great start and tried to build a
gap, I think I did quite a good job.
Tassi could only pass a few laps from
the end, when I made a small mistake
at turn 12. By then my tyres were
dead, and eventually also Oriola
passed, but third is a great result,
given that our target is the European
trophy finale in Adria…”
His podium, together with Stian
Paulsen’s eighth place in the same
race, prove that smaller teams can
compete on equal footing with more
professional outfits in TCR, because
the cars are all the same and may be
run (and repaired…) with affordable
budgets.
we just told ourselves that we could
not let the opportunity go of starting
from pole in Race 2 and decided to
have a go at fixing the car… We are a
small team, with five guys that
worked until 5 am to repair everything
and did it wonderfully!”
And the effort paid off! Starting from
pole position, Møller led the race for
ten out of the 14 laps and eventually
finished third behind Attila Tassi and
Pepe Oriola.