Matěj Korený, the 5th best driver in this year’s Renault Twingo Cup championship, gave an interview for the ESET V4 Cup‘s official website. He spoke about his first win, racing against his brother Tomáš and his plans for the future.
Matěj, you’ve finished 5th in the Twingo Cup standings. How would you rate the season?
It was definitely an interesting season. It was my first year of racing with my brother and finally, I had someone to cooperate with on the track. It helped me, which led to a huge improvement in my results. You just can’t race alone in the Twingo Cup. The car is too weak and you need to use other cars to drag.
This season you also took your first ever win, which happened in the 2nd race at Slovakia Ring. How did it feel to be on the top step of the podium for the first time?
Just like I said, I’ve improved a lot this year. It’s all about hard work, lots of preparations and finally, it came together. Of course, luck also played some role, but that’s Motorsport.
Is the 2nd race at Slovakia Ring also your best moment of the season? Or are you going to remember more some other moment from this year?
I’ll never forget the final race at Hungaroring, where I and my brother were disqualified for allegedly breaking one totally nonsense rule about working together on the track. At Hungaroring, the organiser kept making one mistake after another, and so even if it’s something I won’t be that proud about, I’ve learnt even race organisers are not perfect and you need to have some sense of humour in racing. Unfortunately, it cost me a better result in the championship, but I don’t want to create any conspiracy theories here. We laughed at home about it and moved on.
And now from the other side. What is your least favourite moment of this season?
Probably Red Bull Ring, where I lost two places and even a podium in the final corner. But that’s just racing and I don’t see it as a big disaster.
You’ve mentioned several times that you raced against your brother Tomáš this year. How does it feel to race against your sibling? Do you approach him any differently than other drivers?
Just like I mentioned at the beginning, it’s vitally important to cooperate in the Twingo Cup. So we didn’t see each other as competitors, but we worked together as much as we could. So being siblings actually gave me a huge advantage. We communicated easily and managed to work together in a much better way than others. Even despite it led to that previously mentioned situation at Hungaroring.
Who was your most challenging competitor this season?
There were many fast drivers in this year’s championship. But the toughest ones were probably Mark Škulj, Nik Stefančič and Gašper Dernovšek. Battling with them led to contacts very often.
And was there also somebody you really liked to fight against this season?
If I have to name a competitor who was very fast and great to fight with, it would be Jaka Marinšek.
The final question is about your plans for the upcoming season. Do you still want to continue in the Twingo Cup or are you looking into some other championships?
I still don’t know. We will be looking into more opportunities, but as we are two with my brother, it’s not easy for us to find enough money. Maybe we are going to try some endurance championship, but as I said, it’s all open and we are still in discussions.