“We are satisfied with the course of the weekend. Mercedes took three podium finishes and even KTM was far from it. It was an intense test of technique, team and drivers,” said Tomáš Fanta, Managing Director of RTR Projects, whose team had three crews in Styria.
Ondřej Rokos and Petr Lisa held the banner of the Brno stable during the weekend. They laid the foundation for their first success in the qualification for the endurance race. For the hour-long event, Rokos led the Czech crew to fourth place in the GTX class and seventh overall. All this in his first qualifying session on the Austrian circuit, before which he was also unable to prepare optimally. “The conditions were rainy in practice. Ondřej and Petr, however, prepared intensively on the simulator, which proved to be crucial in the end,” praised Tomáš Fanta to his charges.
But that was just the beginning. Rokos made a successful start to the endurance race and took a step towards second place. “Ondra started perfectly,” said Petr Lisa, watching his partner’s performance in the pits with enthusiasm. “He pulled through beautifully, got into a great position and kept the pace high from then on. For me, it was an absolutely great performance,” added Lisa, who then brought the journey to silver to a successful end. In addition to the GTX classification, the crew also made a strong showing in the overall standings, taking third place.
“I was trying to keep the pace and save a little more tyres for the end,” says Lisa, who also had to look in the rear-view mirrors. “Behind me was Dennis Waszek in his BMW M4 GT3. I didn’t want him to catch me. So I had to weave my way back and forth between the cars and not get stuck anywhere. I managed to do that,” Lisa sighed.
On Sunday Rokos continued his successful endurance in the sprints. He worked his way up to second place in GTX and third overall in both 25-minute events. In the first case he started third in class, in the second fourth.
“It was definitely a good weekend. It can always be better, but I’m satisfied,” said Rokos, who was also glad to have had a chance to test the starts and drive in heavy traffic a month and a half before the start of the new GT2 European Series. “It was a valuable experience,” he said.
Tomáš Fanta also sees the benefit for the crew in participating in the Red Bull Ring. The new edition of the GT2 European Series will start at the end of May in Monza, Italy, which is also characterised by fast passages and straights.
“We had to cope with the new tyre specification, but above all with the extreme stress on the brakes. This will be crucial in the first race of the GT2 European Series anyway. The demands on the brakes and their durability are similar at Monza,” Fanta points out.
The races at the Red Bull Ring are not the last kilometres Rokos and Lisa will cover before the start of their main programme. “Next week we will ride in Most. We still want to try some things out,” Rokos reveals. But the testing in the northwest of Bohemia may not be the end of it. “There will be a track day in Spa at the end of April, but I am not yet able to confirm that we will actually take part,” Rokos adds.
KTM a little bit from bronze
It didn’t take much and the RTR Projects team managed to take the podium in Austria with two of its crews. The KTM X-Bow GTX was also very close. Viktor Mráz and Jaroslav Honzík finished the endurance race in fourth place, and Mráz repeated the same result in the second sprint. In the first sprint, the Slovak rider finished sixth.
At one point it seemed that the Slovak-Czech crew could win bronze in endurance. Jaroslav Honzik had a good start and then kept his rivals behind him until the changeover. The pair lost their podium position only at the end.
“We stayed on the podium almost until the end, but Viktor’s tyres went flat. I pushed it too hard at the beginning,” Honzík admits. “Then, on top of that, Viktor hit a rider a lap back twice in the last corner, losing a few seconds, and finally Max Grip passed him on the straight,” Honzík says. However, even the loss of third position did not dampen the Czech rider’s enthusiasm. “We are absolutely satisfied. We laughed, it was fun and we enjoyed some good battles. The whole stint I kept the competing Ferraris and KTMs behind me, I also had a duel with Dan Skalicky. Maximum satisfaction,” assures Honzík.
The performance of Viktor Mraz and Jaroslav Honzík in the endurance race was also enriched by a special live broadcast. It took place on Honzik’s YouTube channel. Both the Czech rider and his Slovak partner accompanied the onboard footage with immediate comments and impressions.
“I think we invented a whole new style of nervousness,” laughs Honzík. “Most riders think about how they’re going to start. They’re nervous or they’re relaxing. But instead we were worrying about whether the camera was charged and for about ten minutes before I went to the car I was running back and forth in the pit lane, swapping SD cards and power banks,” he elaborates on the hilarious moments. But he wasn’t distracted by the live feed during the race. “I don’t have any race stress, so that made it all the easier. Everything worked, we had several thousand spectators watching and everyone loved it. That’s the main thing,” he concludes.
Tomáš Miniberger and Daniel Skalický also entered the endurance race for RTR projects. The experienced duo achieved sixth place behind the wheel of the KTM X-Bow GT2 in the intense GTX class competition.
