FIA GT3, Slovakia Ring - Event Preview

The FIA GT3 European Championship will enter new territories this weekend as it will race on the Slovakia Ring circuit near Bratislava. A total of 28 GT3 cars have been entered for the fifth round of the 2011 championship. The new Slovakia Ring circuit is one of the longest race tracks in Europe, measuring 5.922 km.

Being close to Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic the Slovakian round will be considered a home race for many drivers and six local drivers have found a seat with one of the FIA GT3 European Championship teams. MTECH Motorsport will enter one of its Ferrari 458 Italia for Jan Danis, who most recently raced a GT1 Lamborghini at Brno in 2010, and Zdeno Mikulasko.  Another full Slovak line-up will be racing for Reiter Engineering, Anton Kiaba and Stefan Rosina, who also raced in GT1 at Brno last season. The other Slovak drivers are full season entrant Filip Sladecka (Heico Motorsport) and Jirko Malcharek, who will join the #32 WRT Audi R8 LMS. Malcharek raced in FIA GT in 2001 and 2002 before becoming the first ever Slovak F1 driver when was signed by Minardi to become their test driver for the 2002 season.

Four Czech drivers will be on the grid, three of them driving for Czech team Gravity Charouz Racing. Jarek Janis, Jan Stovicek and Jakub Knoll will all race a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3, with Martin Matzke returning to the FIA GT3 European Championship to join Markus Palttala in the Fischer Racing Ford GT.

Csaba Walter will represent Hungary at the Slovakia Ring, with Nikolaus Mayr-Melnhof and Dominik Baumann defending the Austrian honors.

It remains to be seen though what the local heroes can do against the regular GT3 drivers on the new circuit, which was officially opened in October of 2009. Championship leaders Francesco Castellacci and Federico Leo will try everything to increase their lead before heading to the final round at Zandvoort. Ide and Franchi, Al Faisal and Sandstroem as well as the two Faster Racing by DB Motorsport pairings will try to prevent that from happening and close the gap to the AF Corse Ferrari ahead o the Dutch round.

Joining the FIA GT3 European Championship at the Slovakia Ring this weekend is the FIA Central European Zone Championship. A total of 33 cars are set to race this weekend, the highlight of their weekend a 2-hour endurance race on Saturday. The Central European Zone race will have several GT3 Porsches and Ferrari’s in it, but also exotics like the Alpina BMW B6 GT3 as well as long-time fan favorites like the Pagani Zonda (Rock Media) and the Saleen S7R (Appstores Motorsport).