Câmara happy with ‘best Sprint’ of the season after finishing fourth in Budapest

Rafael Câmara was happy to have finished fourth in the Budapest Sprint – and was keen to take the learnings from today into Sunday’s Feature Race.

The Invicta Racing driver had a great start from P9 to get up to sixth and was one the contenders for the podium positions in a DRS train in the early part of the race.

Following a collision between Nikola Tsolov and Sebastián Montoya, Câmara was promoted up to P4 and left to fight Laurens van Hoepen for third in the closing stages.

But the Brazilian driver was forced to settle for fourth, although speaking in the paddock afterwards, he was extremely satisfied with the result.

“I’m happy with that,” he said. “That is our best result in Sprint races, so it’s good to take it today.

“Also we still have some good points to fight for tomorrow, and we have a good opportunity starting from P2. So I’m happy with that. Now we learn what we can do better for tomorrow and try to put everything together.”

When asked what he had learned from his 28 laps in the Sprint for the Feature Race, Câmara responded: “It was a bit boring. I stayed quite long time in the DRS train, but for sure there will be good learnings for tomorrow.

“There are things that we can see on the data, from speaking with my engineer and then we can also see what we can improve on the car.

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“Also my driving, there is always something we can do better. But it’s a long race, I was just waiting to see if there were any mistakes and then try to take the opportunities. I’m happy with what we did.”

Câmara was also asked about the start, with clean air priceless around the Hungaroring, the Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy member knows it is important.

However he also takes quite a bit of confidence from the fact that both of his victories this season have come with him being second after Lap 1.

“It's always good to be in clean air, especially for the tyres, you can control them a bit better,” he acknowledged.

“But we take it where we can and then try to maximise the situation. If we are P2, it’s fine. In both races that I won this year, I actually went down to P2 on the first lap. So we'll see what will happen, but just focus on ourselves, do our best and eventually the result will come.”

Câmara continued to preview Sunday’s Feature Race, where he is set to start ahead of title rivals Nikola Tsolov, Gabriele Minì and Alexander Dunne.

In addition to that, rain has been forecasted to hit the area at some point on Sunday, but for the Invicta driver neither of these factors will change his approach.

“For the championship, it would be good for us to close the gap,” he said. "But I think it will not change anything in our lives, what we do, what we're working for.

“But tomorrow, starting from P2 gives us a good chance of scoring points and to close the gap. In the same way, we know how the Feature Race is and we know that we cannot relax.

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“Let's see how it will be tomorrow. Last year it was raining in F3, and that went well. I think whatever the conditions will be, like I said, we're preparing the best way we can and we will be ready for what will happen.

“I think maybe it's a bit calmer if it's dry and it's just a normal race. But whatever will happen, we will do our best.”