A step forward at the Hungaroring

Despite a difficult start to the meeting, Michael Benyahia left Hungary stronger than he had arrived. Because of the particular configuration of the Hungaroring which doesn’t really promote overtaking, the results of the young Moroccan-American driver did not show how he developed new attacking skills, while increasing the level of his pure performance.

“Michael has probably achieved his best performance of the year in Budapest,” says his coach Stéphane Daoudi. “With sheer speed he is continually getting closer to the reference time. At the first meeting at Lédenon, he was to 2” off the pace. At Le Mans in the rain, it was 1.6” and was closer to 1.2” on the streets of Pau. Here it dropped below a second, to 8 tenths off.”

“Meanwhile, Michael has progressed in terms of attacking. On a circuit which hardly lends itself to it, he was one of the few drivers to do more overtaking this weekend. In the last race he tried to overtake on every lap, sometimes right, sometimes left, while defending from the drivers following him before finding the opening on Kami Laliberté on the last lap. He is no longer the same driver as in the early season.”

But the Hungarian round of the French F4 Championship had not started ideally. While he was trying to scrub in his brake pads for the first time in the free practice session, he had to return to the pits to solve a problem with his helmet visor. The braking system didn’t appreciate the sudden lack of airflow while the ambient temperature was already high. When he returned to the track, Michael had to face a very embarrassing brake deficit while he was learning the intricacies of the track. An unfortunate consequence of this situation was that he was unable to give his best in the early laps of the qualifying session, when the tyres were most effective, and only set the 19th fastest time, which complicated his task in the races.

Despite his status as youngest driver on the grid directly from the Junior category of karting, Michael has quickly acclimatised to driving a car. In Race 1, he was already showing greater confidence in preparation for overtaking and regained three places. Consistent and not committing errors, he repeated it in the second race with a 13th place at the finish line. But it was during Race 3 he was more at ease in close combat in a tight group. His tenacity allowed him to make a superb overtake even on the final lap.

“I’m not really happy with my results at the Hungaroring,” admitted Michael. “I fought well, but I was hoping to get better results. It’s true that I was faster and I felt more confident to attack. However, I still progress to make to finish higher in the standings.”

The next round at Magny-Cours will give Michael the opportunity to highlight his recent progress as pre-training sessions will allow him to learn the track at Nevers and start with the same knowledge of the circuit as his opponents.