Josef Záruba, after a tight duel with Richard Chlad Jr., won the first ESET Sprint at the Brno Circuit.
The Friday time practice for ESET Sprint was controlled by Marcin Jedlinski in his Audi R8 LMS GT3, paired in the first row of the starting grid by Petr Lisa in his prototype Norma M30. These two were followed by Richard Chlad Jr. and Josef Záruba in the second row and Filip Sládečka and Miro Konopka in the third row.
An ideal start was performed by Josef Záruba, who advanced to the lead before Richard Chlad Jr., however, the beginning of the race was marked by a mass accident in the first curve signalled by red flags over the circuit. Marcin Jedlinski was side hit by Filip Sládečka and ended his spin with the car across the track, where it was immediately hit again by Jakub Knoll. A couple of metres behind them another accident involved Stanislav Jedlinski, Jiří Svoboda and Lubomír Jakubík. All three of them stopped their high speed by hitting against the tyre barrier on the opposite side.
After a couple of dozens of minutes the cars began to move again and the race was restarted. The pilots were lined according to their ranks at the moment when the race was interrupted. Therefore after restart behind the safety car the leaded role was taken by Josef Záruba in his Lamborghini Huracan in front of Richard Chlad Jr. in Audi R8 LMS and Filip Sládečka in Lamborghini Huracan. Záruba and Chlad then followed each other in tight contact and struggled for each meter of the road. Chlad in his Audi R8 LMS GT3 tried to find a fissure and grasp the lead but Záruba successfully fought off every attack of his rival and after the thrilling eleven laps he scored a deserved victory in the overall ranking as well as in his class of cup GTC, where the second rank was scored by Filip Sládečka and third by Dennis Waszek.
“I am glad to have defeated all GT3s. After restart my most important task was to hold Richard behind me, which I managed and then could enjoy the duel with him for the rest of the race. I am glad I and my cup car won over everybody in a race, for the first time so far,“ claimed Josef Záruba.
Richard Chlad Jr. ranked second in ESET Sprint and first in GT3 class. The second GT3 rank belonged to Marcin Jedlinski, who started from the pit lane when the race was restarted and moved to the front ranks only in the course of the race. Miro Konopka ranked third in GT3 category.
The class GT3 Trophy found its winner in Tomáš Erdélyi with BMW Z4 GT3 before Petr Kačírek in Audi R8 LMS and Gregor Zsigo and his BMW Alpina B6. The fourth rank belonged to Stefan Wieninger in his new Audi R8 GT4 of LMS Engineering team after his Brno premiere. Erdélyi´s victory moved him much closed to the current leader Lubomír Jakubík, who ended the race after the first curve.
“This is the end of my first season with a GT3 car, much satisfactory for me. I managed to end at a podium rank most of the time, learning all the time, although this was not very easy for me at my age,“ said Erdélyi in the finish.
The winner of TCR category was Milovan Vesnic in his Seat Cupra TCR, followed by his team mate Jakub Wyszomirski and accompanied to the podium further by Václav Nimč Jr. and Audi RS3 LMS. Thus the Audi make was most numerous in the starting field, including four GT3s, a new model of GT4 specification and Nimč´s TCR category Audi. Nimč, by the way, started from the pit lane, for he accidentally hit and started the fire extinguisher when entering his car. Before the mechanics completed cleaning of his car Nimč missed the time for entering the circuit and had to start from the pit lane. Despite that he was satisfied with the result.
D5 ESET Sprint was won by Petr Lisa in Norma M30.
GTC
1. Josef Záruba
2. Filip Sládečka
3. Dennis Waszek
GT3
1. Richard Chlad Jr.
2. Marcin Jedlinski
3. Miro Konopka
GT3 Trophy
1. Tomáš Erdélyi
2. Petr Kačírek
3. Gregor Zsigo
TCR
1. Milovan Vesnic
2. Jakub Wyszomirski
3. Václav Nimč Jr.
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