We have arrived at the final round of this year’s Eset GT Championship in the Czech Republic, at the iconic Brno circuit. This is where I won the Skoda Octavia Cup in 2016 and, for the second time, the Swift Cup Europe in 2021. So, I guess it’s clear that I love the Czech track. This time, I had to fight for a podium finish in the GTX championship. It was a frustrating weekend.
In the previous round at the Slovakiaring, part of the engine upgrades arrived. As a result, my car’s power increased by nearly 20%, which is a significant improvement. However, the upgrade package is not yet complete, so, as expected, we faced considerable challenges with the car being much faster. We mainly struggled with oil supply issues and transmission problems.
At the Slovakiaring, I already had to drive well below my capabilities; my main task was just to bring the car home and secure points. At that time, we believed these problems wouldn’t haunt us in the Czech Republic, and we might even deliver a surprise. There wouldn’t be a heatwave, and the track is much slower, so the engine should withstand maximum performance.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. We raced in summer-like conditions, with temperatures around 32-35 degrees Celsius, and the lower speeds didn’t solve our problems either. I had two choices: push the car to its limits until it gave out, likely destroying the very expensive engine, or drive smart and at least secure third place in the championship. Since there’s no way I could afford a new engine for the Lotus, I had to accept that I wouldn’t really be racing this time, just doing laps. It’s a hellish feeling. I know both I and the car have so much potential, but I can’t even show a fraction of it.
Don’t get me wrong—the team did an excellent job. GFS Racing has immense experience when it comes to Lotus cars. I can’t even calculate it precisely anymore, but depending on the track, the car is at least 6-8 seconds faster. It’s just that the ordered parts either haven’t arrived yet or aren’t ready.
We started the year without any idea of how the Lotus Exige V6 Cup-R would perform, but we aimed to compete with the GT4 cars. The possibility of a podium finish in the GTX category by the end of the year seemed out of reach. So, at the end of the season, I had one request for the team: to let me push for at least one lap on new tires so we could see where we stand.
This happened during the second qualifying session, where I clocked a lap time of 2:07.008, ahead of the KTM GTX, Lamborghini Super Trofeo, Cup Porsches, and, of course, all the GT4 cars. And this was without making any adjustments to the car or having any experience on the track at such high speeds. If I could have driven like this all year, we would have been contenders for the GTX championship title. Would have… if… These words are meaningless in motorsport.
There isn’t much to say about the last weekend. I couldn’t really compete properly in either the previous or the current round. I brought the car home in all 14 races this year and secured the points. I finished in 3rd place in the championship, which is a surprising result for me with a car at this level.
We have many plans for next year, and it would be great to continue on this path and stay in the world of GT racing. For this, we need sponsors, and we have to find them. That’s what’s next.
A huge thank you to the smaller and larger sponsors, individual supporters, donors, and Egon Burkus, the team leader of GFS Racing Team. Thanks to them, we were able to complete a full season this year. We’ll be back next year!
