The Red Bull Ring will host the second event of the ESET Cup following weekend. Many competitors welcome the return of the Austrian track to the championship calendar, as shown by the long starting list. Exactly 39 cars sign up for both sprints.
Large starting field is the result of cooperation between the ESET Cup and the Austrian Touring Car Masters championship. Therefore it’s a guarantee of interesting fights for positions, which was proven by the inaugural race at the Hungaroring. The cooperation of both series will continue throughout the season, except for the race in Poznan.
“I am very glad that TCM organizer Gerhard Trenker and I have found a common path. We have been working on the cooperation since last summer and the first race at Hungaroring confirmed that we have set out in the right direction, “said ESET Cup promoter Josef Křenek.
In the GT3 category, the Polish Olimp Racing team is going to enter cars for the reigning champion Marcin Jedlinski and his father Stanislaw. Stanislaw Jedlinski sign in for Hungary event with a Ferrari 488 GT3, but eventually started with an Audi R8 LMS GT3. He also applied Ferrari for the Red Bull Ring, so we’ll see if he´ll actually bring the Italian machine. Racing Trevor’s Gregor Zsigo will bring his new BMW M4 GT3 again. He was just getting to know the car in Hungary and finished third in the first sprint. Hungarian sprint winners Libor Milota with Mercedes AMG and Marcin Jedlinski with Audi R8 LMS GT3 are hot candidates for the wins in Austria, however, they should pay attention to local driver Ernst Kirchmayer, who is going to race with a Ferrari 488 GT3. We will also see Piotr Wira with the Mercedes, Petr Kačírek with the Audi, István Bóta with the Mercedes and János Sánta with the Aston Martin in the GT3 category.
Dennis Waszek won both Hungarian races in GTC category with the Lamborghini Super Tropheo and he is looking forward to repeat the success. In both cases, Adam Rzepecki finished behind him with the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, and it is Porsche, that will have the largest representation in the GTC class. A total of eight are on the entry list.
We will see Šenkýř Motorsport team again in the GT4 category. The team entered Samuel Vetrák and Petr Švantner in two BMW M4 GT4 cars. The Czech pair is going to race against Porsche Cayman’s Sandi Jeram and the local driver Richard Haas. The dominance of German technology in the GT4 will be further underlined by the Mercedes AMG GT4 in which Luca Panizzi and Predrag Šainović will take turns.
An equally attractive list of racing cars also offers the GTX category. For example, Pagani Zonda, Lamborghini Huracan, the Bulgarian special SIN Car 1 or KTM GTX will face each other. A total of nine cars are registered in this category. Also the D5 division will certainly offer interesting fights. We will see six KTM X-BOW and Radical SR8.
In addition to two sprints, an endurance race waits for most of the drivers, albeit in a slightly different line-up. For example, Dennis Waszek is going to share the BMW M4 GT3 with Gregor Zsigo, Petr Brecka will be joined in the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup by Karel Neffe or Samuel Vetrák will share the BMW M4 GT4 with Marián Bíž.