The most famous race in the world, the best result of the season. That’s the combination with which the Mičánek Motorsport powered by Buggyra team leaves Le Mans. The Jáchym Galáš – Matěj Pavlíček pairing made their mark both in the overall standings and in their class. The second race was canceled by the organizers due to problematic tires.
It’s the kind of result every team dreams of from Le Mans: a top-ten finish on the track that hosts the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans. Mičánek Motorsport powered by Buggyra now joins the elite club of teams that can boast such an achievement. Jáchym Galáš and Matěj Pavlíček fought their way into the top ten. “For our junior pairing, this is the best result of the season, and I’m very pleased it came here. This performance shows that we belong among the absolute top not only in the PRO-AM class but also in the most prestigious PRO category. For both drivers, it’s a huge motivation—not just for the race itself but especially for qualifying. It confirms that qualifying is key to achieving strong results,” says team manager Jiří Mičánek Jr.
He is referring primarily to the excellent result achieved by Jáchym Galáš, who finished the qualifying session in tenth place. Yet it was far from an ideal lap. “I drove a solid first lap to make sure I had a reasonable time and could take risks in the following laps. All my other laps were affected by something — I got held up behind another car or there were yellow flags. Even so, it was enough for tenth place,” said Galáš, adding that if he had managed to drive a lap at the limit, he could have been a second faster.
Galáš, together with Matěj Pavlíček, then managed to turn their excellent qualifying performance into an equally strong result in the race. They finished eighth in the elite PRO category and tenth overall. “This result clearly stemmed from our qualifying performance. It just goes to show that qualifying is the most important session of the weekend,” says Galáš.
Matěj Pavlíček took over the car from Galáš in twelfth position and brought it across the finish line in eleventh. After a competitor’s penalty, however, the Mičánek Motorsport powered by Buggyra Lamborghini Huracán ST EVO2 moved up into the elite top ten. “When Jáchym handed me the car in twelfth, it was stressful for me. Even so, it would have been the best result of the season. Finishing in the top ten at Le Mans is a dream come true,” reflects Matěj Pavlíček on the race.
The Bronislav Formánek – Štefan Rosina crew aimed to confirm their status as title favorites in the PRO-AM class at Le Mans. Their bid for victory was first complicated by Štefan Rosina’s fastest lap being invalidated by race direction for exceeding track limits. Their chances of a podium finish were further hampered by a delay in the pits during the driver change, where the team lost about twelve seconds—partly because other competitors blocked their car during the swap. “There were maybe ten cars around us, and we had to push our car out,” shrugged Štefan Rosina. The duo ultimately finished fifth in the PRO-AM class and sit second in the championship standings.
Formánek and Rosina could have had a chance for redemption on Saturday, right before the start of the 24-hour race. However, overnight on the eve of the race, organizers announced that the event would be canceled due to Hankook tire issues. The Huracán grid, comprising around fifty cars, had already suffered 31 tire failures during practice, qualifying, and the first race, with the tires literally coming apart.
„The problem was already being dealt with intensively from the practice sessions. We had restrictions on maximum speed and limits on deviations,” explains Jiří Mičánek Jr. His team managed to avoid tire failures, likely thanks to a conservative setup. “We ran a very safe setup with minimal deviations. On the other hand, it reflected in our results,” says Štefan Rosina. The “tire policy” also frustrated Bronislav Formánek. He recalls a situation on the finish straight, where, due to the maximum speed set by the organizers because of the tires, a competitor overtook him. “Even from the results, you can see he was going about seven kilometers per hour faster,” points out Formánek.
The decision by the series organizers to cancel the second race, however, was welcomed. “When you see three cars around you suffering tire failures with your own eyes, it’s not a good feeling.” Like the other drivers, he was still disappointed to miss out on the role of “support race” for the most famous race in motorsport history. “Racing at Le Mans during the 24 Hours is a dream come true for any boy, and now we lost that opportunity,” says Matěj Pavlíček.
Team manager Jiří Mičánek, on the other hand, does not mince words. “This was one of the key weekends of our entire season. I understand that there are tire problems that cannot be resolved on the spot, but to receive assurances in the evening that the race would take place in some shortened form, and then to get a WhatsApp message in the middle of the night saying the race is cancelled, strikes me as highly unprofessional. The entire grid invested enormous effort and money leading up to this weekend, which has now gone to waste,” he says. The organizers plan to replace the cancelled race with another event, but details have not yet been announced.
Still, the team can take away a positive result, and above all, the distinction of having been part of the 24H Le Mans race weekend. “I want to thank Jiří Mičánek for giving us the opportunity to be here,” says Štefan Rosina. “I have bittersweet feelings about it, but the fact that we were part of Le Mans and achieved such a strong result is something no one can ever take away from us,” adds Matěj Pavlíček.
