Three races, four trophies. That is Mičánek Motorsport’s tally from its home race weekend at the Masaryk Circuit. The team dominated both sprint races as well as the endurance race. But for the second year in a row, technical trouble prevented the weekend from running entirely smoothly.
“Finishing every race first in the GTC class was clearly our goal, and we achieved it. We enjoyed the weekend more this year than in previous seasons, with several hundred fans, partners and friends joining us. A big thank you also goes to the management of Automotodrom Brno, who were extremely accommodating and helped us put on a great show for everyone who came,” says team manager Jiří Mičánek.
Mičánek celebrated his fortieth birthday on Saturday, 12 September. In the end, he received three birthday surprises. In addition to his team, the management of Automotodrom Brno came to congratulate him, while the organisers of the GT Cup Series provided the third surprise by inviting him onto the podium during the evening prize-giving ceremony.
On track, however, the team did not have a quiet weekend despite its three victories. Jiří Mičánek had originally planned to enter two cars in every race, but that only proved possible in Saturday’s opening sprint. Bronislav Formánek made the better start, keeping not only Záruba behind him but also theoretically faster cars from other classes. Josef Záruba gradually closed the gap to his rival and, after the pair swapped positions several times, eventually got ahead of Formánek and crossed the line first in the GTC class.
The result levelled their head-to-head record at 2–2. “It was incredibly close, but I believe he’ll only get to enjoy it until tomorrow, when I’ll get him back,” Formánek said immediately after the race. Behind him in the garage, however, the team’s mechanics were discovering that there would be no rematch. Záruba had finished the race running on nine cylinders, and a quick inspection afterwards confirmed that one cylinder had no compression.
“It’s a bit of déjà vu. Last year we lost an engine in qualifying on Friday, and this time the same thing happened at the end of Saturday’s first race. Pepa won it even though he finished on only nine cylinders. But in the garage we found there was no compression in one of them. Unfortunately, the engine needs to be replaced. It’s bad luck, but at the same time we were lucky in a way. If this had happened in Barcelona in two weeks’ time, it would have complicated our fight for the European Lamborghini Super Trofeo title,” says Jiří Mičánek with a shrug. “This is part of racing too. Technical problems have largely avoided us in recent years, so hopefully we’ve now used up our share of bad luck for a long time.”
Jiří Mičánek therefore had to reshuffle the line-up once again. Only Jakub Knoll and Filip Sládečka took part in Saturday’s endurance race. However, they had to switch to the car in which Formánek and Záruba had qualified, meaning that under the regulations they had to start from the back of the grid. “It made things a bit more interesting,” laughs Jakub Knoll. He quickly fought his way back towards the front and handed the Huracán over to Filip Sládečka with a comfortable lead in first place. The Slovak driver then brought the car safely home to celebrate his second GTC victory of the year with Knoll. “I’m completely satisfied from my side and I hope the team was happy too. My job was to bring the car safely to the finish,” says the Slovak driver.
“We were here mainly to prepare ourselves properly for Super Trofeo in Barcelona. We managed to do that,” concludes Jakub Knoll.
Bronislav Formánek took the wheel for Sunday’s sprint and, after another excellent start, spent most of the race ahead of even the theoretically faster single-seaters before crossing the finish line first in the GTC class. “A few drops fell before the start and it looked as though we might get a bit of rain and end up racing on slicks on a wet track. I was hoping that would happen and give me a chance to fight with the faster cars. It didn’t work out that way, but we won and got ourselves ready for the next race weekend,” concludes Formánek.
