A double triumph. Hyundai Janík Motorsport won the TCR Eastern Europe Cup

The Hyundai Janík Motorsport team rounded off a thrilling run in this year’s touring car championship with two titles. In the final race of the TCR Eastern Europe at the Masaryk circuit in Brno, he managed to defend the first place among the teams for the Hyundai brand, and Maťo Homola also finished with the Elantra TCR for laurels among the drivers. In addition, Adam Kout won a bronze third place in the drivers’ ranking for the team.

“Congratulations to the entire Hyundai Janík Motorsport team for a fantastic season that even surpassed last year’s. Already when we entered into a joint partnership two years ago, we believed that we could have the highest ambitions. It’s great that we managed to fulfill them so quickly. Motorsport is an important part of the Hyundai brand DNA, and achievements like this clearly demonstrate the quality and durability of our technologies.” said Martin Saitz, CEO of Hyundai Motor Czech

In the previous 2022 season, the Hyundai Janík Motorsport team won the team title and, thanks to Petr Semerád in the i30 N TCR, also the second place in the drivers’ standings. This year he collected even more cups, despite the fact that he had to face much tougher international competition. The successful TCR Eastern Europe series attracted many drivers from TCR Europe and offered high quality and attractive battles. In addition to the Czech circuits in Brno and Most, the Hungarian Hungaroring, the Austrian Red Bull Ring, the German Oschersleben and the Slovakian Slovakia Ring were also ridden.

“I am very happy that we managed to defend the title in the team classification and, together with Maťa Homola’s driver’s title, get the maximum that could be achieved in the TCR Eastern Europe series this year. It is, of course, the work of the whole team, without which we would not have achieved our successes. Our two-year tenure in TCR Eastern Europe has always been decorated with winning the title and I believe that we will continue to do well in the future. I would like to thank our partners, the whole team and especially the fans who support us strongly.” noted Václav Janík, owner of the Hyundai Janík Motorsport team.

Drivers collected medals in a modified Elantra TCR model

This year’s circuit equipment of the Hyundai Janík Motorsport team was a trio of brand new Elantra TCR cars in racing specification with a two-liter turbo engine with a power of 350 hp and 460 Nm. It drives the front wheels through a six-speed sequential gearbox. The front axle has four-piston brakes with discs with a diameter of 380 mm, and the whole car weighs only 1265 kg, including the driver. The value of each car is around 3.5 million crowns.

Experienced Maťo Homola stood on the podium nine times out of 12 races of the 2023 season, taking three gold, silver and bronze medals each. He thus won the championship title with a relatively large lead. He had his back covered by the excellent formula and kart racer Adam Kout – in his first season in TCR Eastern Europe he won the medal three times, four times he was just fourth and the result was third place overall. The promising youngster Carlo Czepiel then finished his first season behind the wheel of a big car in a great 5th place.