Adam Kout has now completed three seasons in TCR Eastern Europe. Throughout this period, he has raced for Hyundai Janík Motorsport with a Hyundai Elantra and has made steady progress each year. In his debut season, he finished third overall, last year he was runner-up and this year he lived up to his role as the favorite by claiming the championship title.
You entered this season as one of the title favorites and confirmed that status during the opening weekend. However, things didn’t always go smoothly in the following rounds and Martin Kadlečík challenged you for the championship. How demanding was the season as a whole?
It’s true that my goal was to win the title and in a way, it was expected of me. It was time to turn all the preparation into an overall victory. Unfortunately, starting from the second round, we had some bad luck here and there. At Salzburgring, we had a puncture that damaged the car, then there were some contacts and we lost valuable points. But the double win at Slovakia Ring was really something special. The whole team worked excellently all year long, we all pulled together, and in the end, it all paid off.
You went into the final round at Balaton Park with just an eight-point lead. Were you ready to take more risks than usual there?
I think the key was to find the right setup, to have both qualifying pace and race pace. We managed that and the car worked perfectly. Of course, getting a clean start was crucial. Martin made a hard move into Turn 1 to get ahead of me, but that’s part of a hard title fight. I managed to get back in front of him and then just held on the lead.
And the final race ultimately decided the championship.
I approached it with a cool head. I didn’t want to push too hard or take unnecessary risks, because I had a reasonable points advantage and there was no need to rush anything. I was sorry to see Martin retire, I’d hoped the title would be decided on track. Well, it was decided on track, but it certainly wasn’t the ending to the season he deserved. When Martin dropped out early on, I asked the team if there was still a chance for the team title. I wanted to know what position I needed to finish in to turn things around in our favor, which we eventually managed to do.
You also dominated qualifying this year, you were fastest five times out of six. What’s your secret to one-lap pace?
We don’t make any reckless changes or wild setup experiments. But we constantly try to move the car forward step by step and that’s probably the key to our success in qualifying and of course, in the races as well.
You’ve now completed three seasons in TCR Eastern Europe, first finishing third, then second, and now champion. What does this year’s success mean to you?
I appreciate it really a lot, because winning the title was definitely not easy. Martin and the other drivers were very fast, but our battles on track were always fair. Of course, a huge part of this success belongs to the entire team, the cars performed brilliantly and I want to thank everyone for that.
