In a weekend of FIA Euro RX1 Championship that looked set for a Yury Belevskiy win to balance the standings, Patrick O’Donovan grew when it mattered the most and outsmarted the Volland Racing driver to conquer the second win of the season at Nyirád, even though the Brit admitted it wasn’t his best run.
The only driver capable of keeping performance and consistency together was Yury Belevskiy, while surprises appeared all over the 12 qualified drivers from the Heats, as a crash in Heat 1 compromised Patrick O’Donovan’s run and Mika Liimatainen, Zoltán Koncseg and Damian Litwinowicz took advantage of that despite not displaying the flashiest performances. Down the order, an impressive run from Istvan Antal secured a place in the Semifinals in his debut Euro RX1 event.
Semifinal 1 had Belevskiy going away with the lead while Patrick O’Donovan was in pursuit mode and Mikko Ikonen was trailing the top two. On Lap 3, Patrick went to the Joker, covered himself from Ikonen and had the pace to threat Belevskiy, and on Lap 4 the position swap happened as Patrick was in the cleanest form of the weekend. Behind the top two, Ikonen used the advantage in his aid during the final lap, barging his way past Koncseg to secure third place and the spot in the Final.
On Semifinal 2, Liimatainen covered the inside line and kept the lead, helping Mate Benyó leap to second in the process, with Litwinowicz and Antal going early to the Joker as the room to overtake was nowhere to be seen. Litwinowicz had to bulldoze his way to pass Mark Mózer for fourth to have a shot at Tamás Karái, but it all fell down on Lap 4, as a slow exit from the standard route did no favors to Litwinowicz, with Liimatainen, Benyó and Karái crossing the line in this order to qualify for the Final.
In the Final, O’Donovan did the right thing and shut the door on Belevskiy to pass Liimatainen for the lead, but Belevskiy didn’t take too much time to deal with Liimatainen and got second place to catch O’Donovan. The top three had a Joker Lap to do and left it to the final lap, and this was the proof that Belevskiy didn’t have the pace to counter O’Donovan, who went straight to the race win. With Karái down in sixth after the Joker Lap, Benyó battled his way to shut Betomik Racing’s Hyundais of Liimatainen and Ikonen to secure the podium at his home round.
Euro RX1 - Nyirád event results
According to Patrick O’Donovan, the idea was to control pace to not make any mistakes due to the ruts in the track, and everything worked when the opposition followed the same strategy he had. He has 73 points in the standings now, while Liimatainen is second with 64 and Belevskiy has 62, and the next round in the schedule will be at Mettet, in Belgium, on 17 and 18 August.
PHOTO: Team RX Racing
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