Laurens van Hoepen needed Budapest to deliver more than points. After a difficult weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, which ended with a heavy crash, the Trident driver arrived at the 2026 F2 Hungarian GP looking for a clean response.
He found one.
Van Hoepen returned to the F2 podium in Saturday’s Sprint Race with third place, before backing it up with fourth in Sunday’s Feature Race during the 2026 Hungarian GP weekend. The weekend gave him his third podium of the season, his sixth top-five finish of the year, and a valuable points haul before the summer break.
Speaking after the F2 Hungarian GP weekend, van Hoepen said the Budapest result felt especially satisfying after the work his mechanics had put in following Spa.
“It feels good. I mean, Spa was obviously a bit tough and then to come back like this is just very, very nice.”
“Big thank you to the mechanics for all the hard work they’ve done and to kind of repay them in a way like this is nice. The podium yesterday was not easy. I think it was also maybe a bit fortunate with Nikola [Tsolov] and Sebas [Montoya] colliding in front, but then after that I think we managed to race really well.”
“Today, maybe a bit more unlucky with León having the pit stop during the VSC. But overall, just a good weekend pace-wise. Lots of points, I would have wanted to be on the podium today as well, but I’m still happy.”
VSC timing costs Van Hoepen podium shot
Van Hoepen’s Feature Race could have produced another podium, but the timing of the Virtual Safety Car shifted the fight.
Noel León gained during the mandatory pit stop phase after stopping at the right moment under the VSC. That left van Hoepen chasing rather than controlling the podium battle, even though he felt Trident had strong pace across the race.
“I realised straight away when the VSC, when I saw him go in and then saw that the VSC came out. My engineer told me, ‘you’re fighting with León on the pit exit’ and so I kind of knew. But we kept pushing and it was still a decent race.”
“We still have some pace to find, but overall, I think we were one of the quickest, so it’s good overall points. Now with the break it also gives us some time to really look into the data from this weekend, because I think there’s still quite a lot of things we can find. Then, we can come back even stronger in Monza.”
The result still gave van Hoepen something important. He may have missed the Feature Race podium, but he left Hungary with evidence that Trident had recovered well and that the underlying pace remained strong.
Trident has more to unlock before Monza
The summer break now gives van Hoepen and Trident time to study a weekend that delivered points but still left performance on the table.
After six rounds in eight weeks, the pause arrives at a useful time. Van Hoepen believes the team has shown enough pace across the season to approach the remaining rounds with confidence, especially if it can bring each part of the weekend together more consistently.
“I think we’ve been strong apart from Red Bull Ring and Silverstone all year, pace-wise. We had an issue that we found out later. So, to know that we’ve been on the pace every weekend, it gives you just a good feeling for all the races to come.”
“I think if we then can manage to put it all together a bit more, I think we can still show some good things in the second half.”
Budapest did not give van Hoepen everything he wanted. He still wanted the Feature Race podium, and he still felt Trident had more pace to find.
But after Spa, the weekend gave him the response he needed: a podium, a strong points finish, and a foundation to build from when F2 resumes at Monza.
