Marco Butti took the biggest points haul of the weekend at the Hungaroring and firmly put himself back in contention for the title, moving up to third in the standings, 15 points down on championship leader Nicolas Taylor.

Securing his first pole position of the year on Saturday morning, the Italian then went on to score Monlau Motorsport and CUPRA’s long overdue first win of the year. Though he lost out to Ruben Volt’s ALM Motorsport Honda on the road, he claimed the victory later that evening when it was confirmed that Volt’s team had been in breach of the pre-race procecure.

In Race 2, he drove from tenth to third, securing his second podium of the year in as many days, and is now just one point behind team-mate Viktor Andersson on the points table.

“It’s a different feeling to be P1 after another driver gets a penalty for something that is not their fault,” said Butti after Race 1. “He did a really good race and a lot of good defending on me and I didn’t want to risk too much. For sure I’m happy, but it’s not the way I want to win a race, but sometimes this happens.

“(Race 2 was a) really chaotic race. I’m really happy for Junui (Park) for winning his first race. For me…finishing P3 in Race 2 we have to be really happy. As always in TCR Europe, every weekend is like a cinema. The championship is now fully open, I think from P7 to P1 it’s just 30 points, so we have to work a lot when we get to my home race in Monza.”

Championship standings

1 - Nicolas Taylor - PMA Motorsport - Audi RS 3 LMS - 147
2 - Viktor Andersson - Monlau Motorsport - CUPRA Leon VZ TCR - 133
3 - Marco Butti - Monlau Motorsport - CUPRA Leon VZ TCR - 132
4 - Mike Halder - ALM Motorsport - Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCR - 130
5 - Tiago Pernía - Squadra Martino - Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCR - 125
6 - Nicola Baldan - PMA Motorsport - Audi RS 3 LMS - 123
7 - Alex Ley - BRC Racing Team - Hyundai Elantra N TCR - 117
8 - Ruben Volt - ALM Motorsport - Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCR - 109
9 - Junesung Park - Solite Indigo Racing - Hyundai Elantra N TCR - 95
10 - Felipe Fernández - RC2 Racing Team - Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCR - 73