Janík Motorsport on the circuits in 2023

Janík Motorsport continued to win prizes on European and Czech circuits in 2023. The circuit season can be divided into three categories - TCR Eastern Europe, ESET Cup Series and semi-professional "Le Series" and Carbonia Cup.

The team has collected the most success in TCR Eastern Europe, which is also the most prestigious circuit championship we entered in 2023. We defended our 2022 title among the teams, and thanks to Mato Homol we also won the title among the drivers, with Adam Kout classified as the third best driver and Carlo Czepiel as the second best junior.

A look at the team's line-up raised great expectations before the season. Mato Homola, who is the team's certainty, was complemented by Adam Kout, who is very experienced but has been absent from the races for the last few years, and Carlo Czepiel, a young, not yet eighteen years old, kart racer before the season.

We showed that our cars and drivers will be very visible during the first race weekend at Oschersleben. Our racers managed to turn second and third place at the start into a win (Mato Homola) and a third place (Adam Kout). Carlo Czepiel finished sixth in the first race, which guaranteed him a great starting position for the second race. Our teenager handled it like an experienced crafter. He won the second race and well in advance of his season-long goal of letting everyone in the paddock know who Carlo Czepiel is. Adam finished fourth in the second race. Mato left Germany as the leader of the standings thanks to his second place.

We started the second race weekend with perhaps even more dominance than the first, as our drivers completely dominated the qualifying and secured the top three spots on the starting grid for the first race. Unfortunately, however, they were unable to avoid several collisions that accompanied the start, and after a drop in the standings, the race turned into more of a struggle to regain as many lost positions as possible. Fourth, fifth and tenth place finishes were far beyond pre-race expectations. In the second race, the red and blue colours returned to the podium thanks to Mat Homola's third place. Adam finished fourth and Carlo was the last to finish after being shot down by a rival and visiting the pits.

A super successful qualifying session at the Hungaroring gave our drivers high compensating weights for the weekend at the Red Bull Ring, which meant less competitive cars. Despite this, Mato took one podium and closed the first half of the season as the leader of the standings.

He significantly strengthened his position in his temple - Slovakia Ring - at the beginning of June. After a sovereign victory in the first race, he started the second race from eighth place. Very soon he was behind the leading driver. However, aware of his ten-second penalty and sharp elbows, he made only a few overtaking attempts, which did not have the desired effect. Despite crossing the finish line second, Mato was classified as the race winner thanks to the aforementioned penalty and took a huge step towards the title. Carlo Czepiel also returned to the podium at the Slovakia Ring. After a third place in qualifying and a fourth in the first race, he came third in the second. Only Adam Kout did not fare well at the Slovakian stop and was the only driver in the line-up who did not leave satisfied.

He was all the more happy at the following race weekend in Most, his home circuit, where he celebrated his first victory in the championship. His result was all the more valuable as it was his first ever race with the Elantra on a wet track. The main news of the Most weekend, however, was the TCR Eastern Europe title among the drivers, which was secured by Mato Homola thanks to his third and second place one weekend before the end of the season. It is his first major title in twelve years. He also achieved his main goal for the season, which was to qualify for the TCR World Ranking Final, the biggest event in the TCR world after the FIA WTCR. With the points from TCR Eastern Europe, Mato is guaranteed his place at this event.

For the last race weekend in Brno we had to fight for the first place in the team standings and also for the second place among the competitors, which was still within reach of Adam Kout. And even though he put in a great performance highlighted by a second place in the second heat, he ended up third in the overall standings, which is still a perfect result.

Our drivers drove enough points during the season to defend the team championship and Carlo Czepiel, thanks to his steady performance, took fifth place in his first ever season in a sheet metal car and was rated as the second best junior. So the season in TCR Eastern Europe was very successful for us.

The same can be said about the participation in ESET Cup, where Václav Janík won the title in the endurance races in his GTX class with the KTM X-Bow GTX. However, the season was a bit wilder than the TCR Eastern Europe at some stage.

After a successful race at the Hungaroring, where Václav won the endurance race and Tomáš Konvička finished fifth and fourth in the sprint races, a cold shower came. The KTM factory advised us not to start the car until further notice due to the increased risk of fire. So we withdrew from the weekend at the Red Bull Ring and waited to see how the situation would develop.

Fortunately, the break until the next race weekend in Most was long enough, the problem was solved and we were back on the grid. And it was a truly spectacular return. Václav Janík won both qualifying and both sprint races. Together with Petr Majer, they then dominated the hour-long endurance race.

Václav was in second place in the overall endurance ranking before the last race of the season. The race in Brno promised a good fight. In the end, however, it didn't happen, because a rival KTM had an accident that forced its crew to withdraw. Václav Janík was able to take the ESET Cup Endurance Championship title for 2023.

The team drivers from TCR Eastern Europe and ESET Cup Series received their season-long trophies on 28 October 2023 during the trophy ceremony in Prague.

The final chapter of circuit racing in 2023 was the amateur and semi-professional series, which give a wider range of even amateur drivers a taste of the racing world. We entered a total of three of these series. 

The first is the three-part 4 Hours Most series, which meant we didn't have to wait until April for the circuit season to start. The first race was already in January. During the two races, we presented three of our Hyundai i30N cars on the racetrack, with a total of seven drivers taking turns behind the wheel and scoring several podium finishes.

The next series we hit was the endurance "Le" series. These are six and eight hour races plus shorter, insert, races. This series is very popular especially with our gentleman racers. The calendar consists of two races in Brno and two in Most.

The season started with an eight-hour race in Brno, in which our five-member crew Martin Kalvas, Martin Kalvas Jr., Jaromír Malý, David Dědek and Tomáš Gabriel won third place in Division 6 and fourth place overall. Our second crew Josef Čikl - Tomáš Ticháček won their division during the four-hour race.

Josef Čikl and Tomáš Ticháček also won the three-hour race and the following 6-hour Le Most race. In the main 6-hour race we had the crew of Martin Kalvasu and Jakub Beinhauer who finished first in their division and second overall.

And to top it all off, first place in the inset race.  This was also won by the father and son Kalvas crew in the next inset race in Most.

The last race 8h Le Brno was completed by David Dědek, Jakub Beinhauer and Josef Čikl and resulted in second place in the division and fourth overall. The results of the whole season were announced in Brno, where the Janík Motorsport team finished third in Division 6.

Janík Motorsport also showed up in the very popular semi-professional racing series HANKOOK CARBONIA CUP 2023. Driver line-up Petr Koukola, Tomas Tichacek, fleet KTM X-Bow GTX, KTM X-Bow R, Hyundai Elantra N TCR, circuits Brno, Slovakia Ring, Most.

Petr Koukola drove two races with KTM X-Bow GTX with the result of second and third place in the class. For the last race in Most, he sat in the Elantra N TCR and finished also in second place. Tomáš Ticháček with KTM X-Bow R took the second position in class at Slovakia Ring, where he had never raced before.

Another circuit season is over. We would like to thank all our partners for their cooperation, without whom our racing activities could not be so diverse and varied and without whom we would certainly not have experienced such a successful season as the one just ended.