Van Hoepen: 'Podium and points a great way to repay the team'

After a tough weekend at Spa that culminated in a sizeable shunt, Laurens van Hoepen was back on the podium in Budapest and securing valuable points in the Feature Race too.

The TRIDENT driver finished Saturday's race P3, earning his third podium result of the year. He returned on Sunday and crossed the line in fourth, which was his sixth top five also.

Speaking in the paddock afterwards, he reflected on what had been a positive weekend pace and results-wise.

"It feels good. I mean, Spa was obviously a bit tough and then to come back like this is just very, very nice.

"Big thank you to the mechanics for all the hard work they've done and to kind of repay them in a way like this is nice. The podium yesterday was not easy. I think it was also maybe a bit fortunate with Nikola and Sebas colliding in front, but then after that I think we managed to race really well.

"Today, maybe a bit more unlucky with León having the pit stop during the VSC. But overall, just a good weekend pace-wise. Lots of points, I would have wanted to be on the podium today as well, but I'm still happy."

Van Hoepen was one of several drivers that lost ground to Noel León in the pit stop phase as the Campos Racing driver was able to take advantage of a Virtual Safety Car at just the right moment.

It left the Dutch driver battling his way back towards a possible podium result, but he says he knew it would be tough after the Mexican driver had emerged from his mandatory stop with a lesser time loss.

"I realised straight away when the VSC, when I saw him go in and then saw that the VSC came out. My engineer told me, 'you're fighting with León on the pit exit' and so I kind of knew. But we kept pushing and it was still a decent race.

"We still have some pace to find, but overall, I think we were one of the quickest, so it's good overall points. Now with the break it also gives us some time to really look into the data from this weekend, because I think there's still quite a lot of things we can find. Then, we can come back even stronger in Monza."

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With the summer break now upon us, the drivers and teams will get a well-earned break after six rounds in the space of eight weeks.

For van Hoepen, it will provide him a chance to reset going into the latter stages of the 2026 campaign. He says that there will be plenty of work going on in order to maximise results like in Budapest in the remaining rounds.

"I think we've been strong apart from Red Bull Ring and Silverstone all year, pace-wise. We had an issue that we found out later. So, to know that we've been on the pace every weekend, it gives you just a good feeling for all the races to come.

"I think if we then can manage to put it all together a bit more, I think we can still show some good things in the second half."