Harry King slashes points gap with Hungaroring victory

Rising star Harry King has slashed the gap to top spot in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup after a fine performance in Hungary saw him score a first win of the 2024 season.

Harry made the trip to the Hungaroring bidding to bounce back from a tough race at Silverstone in the previous meeting, where he had failed to finish on the podium for the first time this season.

That left the BWT Lechner Racing driver 26 points behind championship leader Larry ten Voorde and the pair were split by just a tenth of a second during free practice, where Harry ended up in third spot.

Qualifying however would very much go in Harry’s favour as he narrowly missed out on top spot to Marvin Klein, whilst ten Voorde could only manage eleventh.

Things then got even better for Harry when Klein was hit with a penalty for impeding another driver, promoted Harry into P1 on the grid for his first pole position of the campaign.

Given that the Hungaroring is one of the most difficult circuits on which to overtake, Harry took his place on the grid aware of the importance of the start and nailed his getaway when the lights went out to lead the field down to turn one.

Holding enough of an advantage that he was able to take the corner unchallenged, Harry wasted little time in building a lead at the front as he pulled clear of Kas Haverkort - who in turn was under pressure from a recovering Klein.

For much of the race, Harry was the quickest man on track as he pulled further clear of the pack behind and even when Klein managed to get into second and wrestled the fastest lap away from Harry, the Briton was too far ahead as he scored a comfortable win by more than three seconds.

It marks the second successive season in which Harry has won from pole at the Hungaroring and means he has now slashed the gap to ten Voorde in the points down to ten points after the Dutchman could only take seventh spot.

Harry now heads directly to Spa - a circuit where he has made it onto the top step in the past - for round six of the season next weekend.

"Qualifying on pole position was hugely important this weekend given how difficult it can be to overtake at the Hungaroring," he said, "and when I saw that Larry had qualified lower down the order, I knew we had a great chance to reduce the gap in the standings.

"The opening laps were all about going on the attack to build a gap and put myself out of danger, and once I broke away from the pack behind, I was able to relax a little and control the race from the front.

"A huge thank you has to go to everyone in the BWT Lechner Racing team for giving me a fantastic car this weekend and we now have to try and carry the momentum from here into the next event at Spa and the remainder of the season."