Top 10 at Le Mans: Jiří Mičánek's team shines on the legendary track with an exceptional result
The most famous race in the world, the best result of the season. With this combination, the Mičánek Motorsport powered by Buggyra team leaves Le Mans. The crew of Jáchym Galáš and Matěj Pavlíček also took the overall lead in their class. The second race was canceled by the organizers due to problematic tires.
It's a result that everyone wants to bring back from Le Mans: the top ten in the race on the track where the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans is run. Mičánek Motorsport powered by Buggyra now belongs to the elite club of those who can boast such a result. Jáchym Galáš and Matěj Pavlíček made it into the top ten.
"This is the best result of the season for our junior crew, and I am very happy that it came here. This performance shows that we are among the absolute top, not only in the PRO-AM class but also in the most prestigious PRO class. For both drivers, this is a huge motivation not only for the race but especially for the qualifying. It confirms that they are crucial for the result," says team manager Jiří Mičánek Jr.
He is referring in particular to the great result of Jáchym Galáš, who finished the qualifying in tenth position. It was far from an ideal lap. "I did a solid first lap to make sure I had a reasonable time and could take risks in the next laps. All the following laps were already thwarted by something; I slowed down behind someone or there were yellow flags. Even so, it was enough for tenth position," Galáš praised himself, adding that if he could have managed to really set a lap at the limit, he could have been one second faster.
He and Matěj Pavlíček managed to turn their great qualifying into an equally good result in the race. They finished the race in eighth position in the elite PRO category and tenth overall. "The result clearly came from the qualification. It confirms that this is the most important session of the weekend," says Galáš.
Matěj Pavlíček took over the car from Galáš in twelfth position and eventually brought it to the finish in eleventh place, but after a penalty to his rival, the Lamborghini Huracán ST EVO2 in the colors of the Mičánek Motorsport powered by Buggyra team moved into the elite ten. "When Jáchym handed over the car to me in twelfth position, it was stressful for me. Even so, it would have been the best result of the season. To reach the top ten at Le Mans is a dream come true," says Matěj Pavlíček looking back on the race.
The crew of Bronislav Formánek and Štefan Rosina also wanted to confirm their role as the favorite for the PRO-AM class title at Le Mans. Their path to victory was first complicated by the scratching of the fastest time of Štefan Rosina, who was punished by the race directorate for exceeding the track limits, and then the chances for the podium were ruined by the delay in the pits during the changeover. The team lost about twelve seconds, partly because their car was blocked by other competitors during the changeover.
"There were maybe ten cars around us; we had to push our car out," shrugs Štefan Rosina. In the end, the pair finished the race in fifth place in the PRO-AM class and second in the overall standings.
Formánek and Rosina could have had a chance for a reparation on Saturday right before the start of the 24-hour race, but the night before race day, the organizers told them that the race was canceled due to problems with the Hankook tires. In fact, the Huracán field of 50 cars had picked up 31 punctures during practice, qualifying, and the first race, with the tire literally flying to pieces.
"The problem has been intensively dealt with since practice. We had a limit on maximum speed; we had a limit on diversions," says Jiří Mičánek Jr. His team avoided the punctures, probably thanks to the conservative setup. "We drove a very safe setup with small diversions. On the other hand, it was reflected in the results," says Štefan Rosina.
The "politics" around tires also upset Bronislav Formánek. For example, he mentions a situation when he was overtaken by a rival on the finishing straight when he was driving at the maximum speed set by the race organizers because of the tires. "Even the results show that he was going some seven kilometers per hour faster," says Formánek.
However, he welcomes the decision of the series management to cancel the second race. "When you see three cars around you with a puncture, it's not a good feeling." Like the other drivers, however, he is sorry to have lost his role as "front-runner" for the most famous race in motoring history. "Racing at Le Mans in a 24-hour race is a boyhood dream come true, and now we've lost it," says Matěj Pavlíček.
Team manager Jiří Mičánek, on the other hand, is not complaining. "This was one of the key weekends of the whole season for us. I understand that there are problems with the tires and that they cannot be solved operatively, but the fact that we get an assurance in the evening that we will take part in the race in some shortened form, and then at night we get a WhatsApp message that the race is canceled, seems very unprofessional to me. The entire starting field has invested a huge amount of effort and money into this weekend, and now it has gone to waste," he says. The organizer will be looking to replace the canceled race with another but has not yet given details.
Still, the team is left with a positive result and, above all, the badge of having been part of the 24 Hours of Le Mans race weekend. "I want to thank Jirka Mičánek for allowing us to be here," says Štefan Rosina.
"I have a bittersweet feeling about it, but nobody will ever take away the fact that we were part of Le Mans and that we got such a good result here," concludes Matěj Pavlíček.
