Meunier masters the ‘Red Cauldron’ to double championship lead
Julien Meunier showed his rivals a clean pair of heels again in the FIA European Rallycross Championship’s Euro RX3 category at Nyirád, claiming his second victory from as many rounds today (31 May) to extend his advantage at the summit of the standings.
Meunier entered day two in the ‘Red Cauldron’ on the front foot, albeit without much breathing space to his pursuers – led by Levente Kacor, Rytis Gurklys, Markus Røsrud and Sámuel Kovács.
The second-quickest run in Q4 this morning was sufficient for the Frenchman to retain his Top Qualifier status by the margin of just two points over Gurklys – who pipped him to the fastest time of the session – and he went on to dominate the opening Semi-Final as Røsrud, Kacor, Dylan Dufas and Audrius Kragas battled in his wake.
From pole position in the all-important Final, Meunier then kept Gurklys at arm’s length throughout to maintain his unbeaten start to his Euro RX3 career, as he bids to add the coveted European Championship crown to his brace of Super1600 titles on the domestic scene.
“It was a good weekend,” the Pont-de-Ruan native reflected. “It wasn’t perfect because we didn’t win every race, but we took full points so I’m very happy. It’s obviously a very different circuit to Latvia, but this car seems to work well everywhere.”
Last year’s championship runner-up Gurklys replicated his Rīga result by finishing second, right in the wheeltracks of his fellow Audi driver – suggesting that this is a duel set to run season-long.
Like in 2025, Kovács rounded out the rostrum in third, to the delight of the partisan fans thronging the circuit grandstands and sun-kissed spectator banks. The Korda Racing ace found himself in the Turn One tyres in Q3, but posted the fifth-best time in Q4 to climb a spot in the intermediate classification and after safely progressing through to the Final, he benefitted from a mistake by Røsrud to ascend the bottom step of the podium.
Barely a second behind at the chequered flag was Libor Teješ, which marked quite the turnaround. Following a bruising curtain-raising contest in Latvia that left him briefly hospitalised, the Czech ace’s ill-fortune continued in Q1 in Hungary with car troubles, and after Q2, he was propping up the 15-strong order.
Things did not improve greatly in Q3, but an excellent start and eye-catching turn-of-speed in Q4 secured Teješ a spot in the second Semi-Final, subsequently getting the better of Tiago Ferreira and Dominik Senegacnik to book a berth in the Final, in which he crossed the finish line fourth.
Dufas wound up fifth in his new Volkswagen Polo – a welcome fillip for the RX Evolution outfit, after the Frenchman crashed heavily in Rīga – ahead of Røsrud, whose weekend was a topsy-turvy affair that oscillated between a table-topping time in Q1 and a retirement-inducing accident in Q2. After running wide down the hill on the first lap of the Final – enabling Kovács to sneak past into third – the Norwegian later glanced the wall on the exit of Turn One, obliging him to settle for sixth.
The most disappointed drivers in the Euro RX3 paddock, however, were likely Kacor and Nicolas Geleyns. Third in the Ranking after Q4, the former suffered heartbreak on home soil at the Semi-Final stage when his Suzuki Swift’s engine blew as he was on-course to advance to the Final.
The latter – second in the championship standings arriving at Nyirád – uncharacteristically missed out on the Semi-Finals after a start-line clash that sent him into a spin at the beginning of Q4 was compounded by a missed joker, resulting in a time penalty that prematurely curtailed his challenge.
The Belgian, who races under the flag of Antigua, will look to fight back in round three of the 2026 campaign at Höljes in Sweden – rallycross’ legendary ‘Magic Weekend’, due to take place on 4-5 July.
Check out the Final Results from Hungary.
