We started the 2024 season with a podium finish in TCR Eastern Europe at Balaton Park. This great result was achieved by Martin Kadlečík, who finished in P2in the second race after starting from P5.
It's already been a nice tradition that we’re successful in the first race weekend of the season. In 2022, Bartosz Groszek won the very first race at Hungaroring. A year later, Tobias Poschik finished in P3 in race 2 at Oschersleben. This year, the missing second place finish was added by Martin Kadlečík at Balaton Park.
Martin became a part of our team thanks to the cooperation with the ESET RaceStar project, which also is a very nice tradition. We could welcome a few young talented drivers in our garage thanks to it. Martin has been doing circuit racing since 2022 only. Last year, he managed to win the Trophy category in Clio Cup Bohemia. Therefore, trying TCR Eastern Europe was a logical step.
We seated Martin into our Audi RS3 LMS TCR 2021 and he did very well. After finishing in P7 in qualifying, he stood in the fourth row on the grid of race 1. It was a shame that the qualifying was red-flagged at its late stage, which disallowed Martin to set an even better time.
Unfortunately, Martin didn’t manage to make a good start and he left the starting grid as the last man. The following recovery drive was worth it, though. Martin finished in P6, which, considering a poor start, was great.
After the reverse grid, Martin stood in P5 on the starting grid of the second race. The start went great this time and after a few corners, Martin found himself in P3. The opening lap was not over yet and Martin was on P2. Afterwards, he tried to catch up with the leading driver. Considering the very fast pace of the leader, Martin started to manage the tyres and he finished in P2.
We’re very happy that also this year the opening race weekend went so well for us.