Slovakia Ring will be the fifth stop of the ESET Cup in this season, and although we still have the September race in Brno on the calendar, the title in the GT3 category could already be decided in Slovakia.
Filip Salaquarda from the I.S.R. team has been dominating this season and has won seven out of eight sprint races. He currently leads the ESET Cup standings with a hundred points, 31 points ahead of second-placed Libor Milota. Salaquarda only needs a 25-point lead after Slovakia to secure the title. However, this time he will face strong competitors. The Racing Trevor team will have experienced Slovak driver Štefan Rosina and Jesse Krohn, a factory driver for BMW Motorsport and the winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona, behind the wheel of the BMW M4 GT3 in the sprints. Another international driver in the field will be Nicolas Leutwiler from Switzerland, who competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans last year. Leutwiler will drive a Porsche 911 GT3.
Of course, Libor Milota with Mercedes and Petr Kačírek with Audi will also be on the starting grid. Piotr Wira returns to the ESET Cup with a Mercedes after skipping Most, and we will once again see Stanislaw Jedlinský with a Ferrari 488. Zdenko Mikulasko will start with a Lamborghini for the home team, ARC Bratislava.
While the GT3 category is almost decided, the battle in the GTC category will continue until the final race. Teammates Jáchym Galáš and Matěj Pavlíček from Mičánek Motorsport currently have the same number of points, 80.5, and the same number of counted victories. Dennis Waszek, who has 67 points and won for the first time this year in Most, can still have a say in their fight.
In the GTC category, Jakub Klobása will start with a Lamborghini at Slovakia Ring, and Mičánek Motorsport will field a third Lamborghini for Libor Dvořáček. Petr Brecka and a trio of Austrians from the Kogelbauer Motorsport team with Porsche cars, Max Lahmer, Bob Bau, and Richard Woschitz, will also be on the grid.
In the GT4 category, Matej Kosić with a Mercedes AMG will compete against Antal Zsigó with a BMW M4 GT4, and the Good-Speed Racing Team is expected to enter another GT4 car. In the GTX category, we will see Petr Lisa and Tomáš Miniberger with KTM GTX from the RTR projects team.
Prototype LMP3 cars will also be on display. Miro Konopka from the ARC Bratislava team will bring one as usual. Young driver Dan Skočdopole from the Bretton team will join the second Ligier LMP3. Jacek Zelonka will showcase the Radical SR10.
Similar lineups will be seen in the endurance race on Saturday, and the Slovakian Grand Prix promises to be an exciting spectacle, as always.