The opening weekend of this year’s races of the Championship in the Central European Zone at Hungaroring, hit its highest point on Saturday with the second races of all included engine cubic-capacities and at the very end with the 60-minute ‘endurance’.
In the two-litres the strange situation from the previous day repeated, while Petr Mandelík with his Lotus Exige became the true king of the two-litres. He literally overrode the speedy Serb Kastratoviče with his Renault Clio, who could not cope with Mandelík’s pressure and went off-course twice. For the first time, he had still managed to return and get ahead of Mandelík, but before the end of the race, he crashed and lost his lead.
Another Czech and also Mandelík’s teammate, Petr Krejčí, finished with bronze among the 2-litres with his Lotus. The green Lotus went smoothly, and so the third Petr of the Brno KT motorsport, Petr Levíček, could prepare for his 60-minute evening race.
The fastest in the national formula was Tomáš Chabr, and the second Tomáš Korený who got back behind the steering wheel of his car which had been tried out a day before by Petr Semerád. In two-litres, Petr Samek finished second, and among formulas 3, Antonín Sus ended up second as well.
A crash even before the start of the sprint D4
All the anticipation of dramatic duels was then exceeded during the start of the second sprint of division 4 against two-litres. Just as the cars were driving onto the circuit during the initial lap, there were two accidents which significantly impoverished the whole starting field. Several of the biggest favourites and the most powerful vehicles could not even return to restart in the race. The initial reason of the problem was the home driver Lekeny with his Renault RS 01. With his familiar zigzagging movements along the track he warmed up the tires, however, during this his vehicle took a 360-degree spin and he rammed into the barrier. Jakub Knoll, who was driving behind him, had to stop in order to avoid the contact. Then he threaded his way through the starting field to return to his leading position there. Malchárek evidently got confused by this and followed him, despite the fact the race had not started yet and therefore he swept away Kubas at the start straight. Some of the other drivers joined the collision and so the starting field was unfortunately rather reduced.
Eventually, Aleš Jirásek with his Praga R1 finished first and he also became the winner of Division 5, where Vaclav Janik with his Norma ended up second. The driver from Šternberk got used to the circuit fairly quickly and the elevation changes did not cause him any troubles. In the overall ranking only Miro Konopka, a champion of division 4, with his Lamborghini could be placed among them. In the overall ranking Jakub Knoll with his BMW Z4 finished fourth and second in the division D4.
Endurance or 60-minute race to top if off.
The very end culminated with a 60-minute race, where the crew could start with two drivers, but the majority of vehicles had just one pilot. Unfortunately, the race was badly affected by the aforementioned accident in the sprint and so a few vehicles were eventually absent. Filip Sládečka with his BMW Z4 drove excellently. He was one of the fast drivers of Šenkýř’s team who became the absolute winner. The second position was eventually taken by the home duo Lekény – Lekény with their Renault RS 01, which paradoxically had caused a chain of accidents in the sprint.
Miro Konopka, one of the most diligent racers of the weekend, could not be missing on the winner’s podium. He was also one of the most successful. The successful premiere of Dan Skalický with his BMW Alpina is also worth mentioning. Despite the shortcoming which the experienced driver found during his race, he finished outright in the fourth position, also the third in D4. In addition, he took part in the two sprints and Endurance, where he swapped his time-tested BMW GTR for the BMW Alpina GT3.
Not all the drivers were fortunate enough to reach the finish line. After doing seven laps, or more precisely, nine both drivers of Praga R1 had to pull their vehicles over.
However, just right at this moment of the race, Kubas – Palmi crew belatedly joined the race with their provisionally repaired BMW Z4. Of course, with such a loss they could not expect any great success, but at least they tried out the technology of the vehicle and also thoroughly tested the skills of their team of mechanics’.
In the two-litres, Petr Levíček took silver with his Lotus Exige, however, only after Vesničový’s Seat with the two-litre turbo.
The next Central European Championship FIA CEZ takes place in the middle of May at the Austrian RedBull Ring.
Česky