Two Junior drivers in TCR Eastern Europe have had completely different outcomes in the Grobnik event in Croatia. While Petr Semerád finished the race on the podium, Tomasz Rzepecki had a technical problem.
There were two Junior drivers in the field. Petr Semerád from the Hyundai / Janík Motorsport team started his Hyundai i30N TCR from third place and Tomasz Rzepecki from Basenhurt A&T Racing set the ninth fastest qualifying lap with his VW Golf GTI TCR.
The Czech driver is one of two candidates for the title and is always a favourite for winning the race. But in Croatia, he wasn’t fast enough to beat Milovan Vesnić, who has returned to the championship, and series leader Bartosz Groszek. However, he did win the Junior classification.
“I tried to hold Bartosz behind me, but I didn’t succeed to do it. Anyway, racing was nice and I’m satisfied with the result,” said Semerád after the race.
Tomasz Rzepecki had a good start and moved up to seventh place. It seemed like it was going well for him, but at a certain point in the race, the car started having technical problems that caused him to lose pace and Rzepecki retired two laps from the finish.
Semerád now leads the Junior classification with 106 points, Rzepecki is second with 46 points. Third is Jáchym Galáš, who only started at Hungaroring, fourth is Levente Losonczy, who missed the last two races, and fifth is the debutant from the Poznań race, Milan Vuković.