Sixth and seventh place. Those were Josef Hrdlička’s results at the penultimate round of this year’s Porsche Sports Cup Deutschland season. The Mičánek Motorsport driver particularly enjoyed the second race at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit, where he went wheel-to-wheel with Michal Perel in an intense battle.
“I like Spa,” said Hrdlička, reflecting on his final weekend of August at the iconic seven-kilometre Belgian circuit. The driver, who has claimed two podium finishes this season, nevertheless admits he had been hoping for better results. “It just didn’t quite come together for me and I didn’t have the best feeling. Practice was held in wet conditions, so I wasn’t able to do much running on a dry track. Qualifying went relatively well, though. The second race was great as well. We had a really good battle with Michal Perel,” said the Mičánek Motorsport driver, looking back on the penultimate round of the season.
Hrdlička arrived in Belgium with confidence boosted by his July success at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. He finished the second race there in third place, following up on his bronze-medal finish at Hockenheimring in May. At Spa, he lined up fifth for both of Saturday’s 30-minute races. However, the opening metres of the first race did not go according to plan.
“My start was relatively good, but I unfortunately went to the inside approaching the first corner,” Hrdlička explained. “The other drivers closed the door on the exit, so I had to back off and they all went around the outside.” That moment effectively shaped the rest of the race for the Czech driver. “By the time I reached Eau Rouge, I was already about a second behind. The others pulled away and I couldn’t catch them. I spent the rest of the race on my own, probably around 200 or 300 metres behind Perel. It didn’t feel particularly good,” he said, describing how he came home in sixth.
The second race was a very different story, with Hrdlička enjoying himself considerably more. For much of the contest, he was locked in a battle with Michal Perel. “We had a really good race,” Hrdlička said with a smile from behind the wheel of his Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. “He initially pulled away from me a little, but then I started closing the gap. He began making mistakes and I managed to get past him.”
However, Hrdlička ultimately failed to come out on top in the duel. The decisive moment came on the exit of the Les Combes section, where Perel regained the advantage. “He braked and went underneath me. I didn’t want to have a crash, so I left him enough room to get past,” Hrdlička explained. The move dropped him back to seventh place, which is where he eventually finished.
Hrdlička already knew before the chequered flag that he would receive a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits. The issue was once again a major talking point throughout the Belgian weekend, with numerous drivers receiving penalties in both races. Hrdlička was also handed a penalty after the opening race, with a total of 10 seconds added to his time.
“Both incidents happened on the exit of Les Combes,” said Hrdlička, who was caught off guard by the stewards’ decision to penalise him. “On one occasion, Perel actually forced me to go out there. Otherwise, he would have hit me. On top of that, I had no idea that track limits were going to be monitored at that particular point. It wasn’t mentioned at all in the drivers’ briefing. When my engineer told me about it over the radio, I was surprised,” he admitted.
This year’s Porsche Sports Cup Deutschland season will reach its climax on 3-4 October. The 2026 campaign will conclude at the same circuit where it began in May, the Hockenheimring.
Photo: Gruppe C
