First Saturday’s race came up unusually early in the morning. Division 4 sprint above two litters, or in other words, the race of the most powerful and attractive cars, which could have been one of the highlights for the spectators, started right at 8 AM.
Needless to say, the race was held on very cold track which was partly dry and partly wet which is not racers’ No.1 choice.
The organisers tried to deal with the situation by four introductory rounds which did not prevent some of the drivers to go off-course while zig-zagging in order to warm the tyres up.
The number of participants was significantly different from the first event in Hungary. The main reasons why some teams had decided not to come to race at this popular circuit were probably the doubled starting fee and also the date, colliding with other events.
The overall winner of the first sprint was Fabian Plentz with his Norma BMW. Within division 4 of FIA CEZ, the winner was Jiří Malchárek from Slovakia with his new production BMW M6 GT3, Jakub Knoll with BMW Z4 GT3 from Šenkýř Motorsport was second, before Jakub Kubas with the same car, who finished the third.
Great final position was achieved also by Aleš Jirásek with Praga R1. He won in division 5 and within FIA CEZ, he ended up as the second.
The category up to 3500 ccm was dominated by Martin Duras from Šenkýř Motorsport Team, who won before Dan Skalický from Duck Racing Team. Both racer drove BMW M3 GTR.
BOSS GP
Red Bull Ring racing weekend offered a busy program with about teen different races. The most attractive one was probably the formula series BOSS GP where we could see almost twenty powerful formulas, including F1 cars.
Expectedly, Both Boss GP races were dominated by Ingo Gerstl with F1 Toro Rosso STR1 Cosworth 3.0 V10, who has repeatedly appeared in Masaryk Circuit in Brno and who is currently holding the circuit record. Unfortunately, even this race was not flawless. After one of the formulas broke down, the racers had to drive under yellow flags and behind safety car for a significant part of the race.
Race of 2-litres – No Czechs this time. Boycott!
The organisers probably underestimated their time-management and thus, they made a few significant mistakes. To give example, the Endurance Race was supposed to start immediately after the 4 division’s sprint of 2-litres which made it impossible to participate for those cars which took part both in sprint and in Endurance. After the race, the cars had to go to a closed parking. Before another race, the team must, at least, refuel and also, do a thorough check and preparation of the cars. Therefore, it is out of discussion to participate in two consecutive races. It is just not possible to have a car at the closed parking and at the starting grid of another race.
Last but not the least problem which FIA CEZ officials are still dealing with, is wrong placement of cars with supercharged engines among those with standard 2-litre cars. As a result, most of the teams with 2-litre cars decided to boycott the race.
Thus, only Rudolf Pesovic with BMW 320 and Jakub Wiszomirski with Honda CR Z and two Seats with 2-litre turbo took part in the race. All of them were placed into the race above 2000 ccm.
Ridiculously, Seat Leon Racer TCR with 2-litre turbo, still in category up to 2-litres, won the category up to 3.5 litre, both in sprint and in endurance race.
FIA CEZ Formula, F3
Both FIA CEZ formula races, both connected with F3 and ÖM were won by young talented Swiss Sandro Zeller before Paolo Brajnik. The bronze in the first race was achieved by Marcel Tobler, and in the second, by Kurt Boehlen.
Paolo Brajnik won in FIA CEZ ranking before Mario Schopper and Franz Woess. Antonín Sus from the Czech Republic finished third in the second race and he skipped the formula-race veteran Franz Woess.
Česky