Crucial weekend in Hungary for Daly

Hungry in Hungary might be the only way to describe American Conor Daly this coming weekend at the Hungaroring. Recent events have not been kind to his championship hopes and a recent ten day time span, June 27th-July 7th, delivered some cruel blows. At Silverstone he made a blindingly fast start to go from ninth on the grid to second place by turn one. He was given a controversial drive through penalty for a jump start although it's difficult to find anyone in the GP3 paddock who has viewed the video tape to agree with the officials. That penalty effectively led to two non-points finishes.

One week later his first qualifying run in Germany put him on top of the time charts as he crossed the start/finish line. He had only dropped to P3 when he pitted for his second new set of tires. When exiting the pits he immediately knew he had a problem with a loose right rear wheel. By the time he drove slowly back to the pits for repairs he had dropped to P19. Because GP3 is so competitive, this inadvertent penalty, in addition to a serious engine power issue, meant that Daly was able to score just one point for the two races. With just eight races left over four weekends, Hungary has taken on even more significance than ever.

"The last two race weekends were not good. I have put more effort into my preparation for Hungary than ever before. I'll have a new engine, I'm with the best team and I'm ready to execute the plan - stay tuned," said Daly.

Daly is very familiar with the Hungaroring having tested and raced there many times in the past. It's a track that has been called Monaco without the houses because of the short straights and tight corners. He will enter the weekend 39 points behind championship leader, Tio Ellinas.

"Despite recent issues I'm only 39 points behind - I can make a big chunk of that up this weekend," commented Daly. "I need an incident free weekend and the rest will take care of itself."

Daly drives for the French based ART Grand Prix team, which is regarded as one of Europe's best junior teams. Past drivers to have gone through ART include current Formula One drivers such as; Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel, Adrian Sutil, Jules Bianchi and Paul DiResta.

GP3 is part of the Formula One support program with all races except Valencia taking place at rounds of the Formula One World Championship. The final rounds will be held in Abu Dhabi on November 1st-3rd.

Conor Daly