13/04/2026
Greinbach 🇦🇹 – first race of the season ✅
This weekend marked the first round of the Styrian Championship, where I decided to compete as preparation for the Croatian season.
For this race, I chose to run my old Tony Kart chassis, as the Greinbach track is extremely bumpy and I didn’t want to risk damaging a new chassis straight away.
Prior to race week, we had one test day at the track, which was challenging due to the rough surface causing multiple issues, but we managed to find a baseline setup. We prepared the kart thoroughly at home, however Friday’s test day before the race was mostly wet, meaning we went into race day with very limited dry running. On top of that, the track conditions changed significantly, with lap times around 2.5 seconds faster than during testing.
Free practice on race day went well, with pace around the podium positions. However, a backfiring issue cost us track time and forced us to skip a session, before solving it with a cable change.
Qualifying came together well – the chassis and engine worked perfectly, and I pushed hard to take P4, despite a throttle cable issue during the session.
Race 1 started strong, gaining a position early and fighting for P3–P4 throughout. Unfortunately, with two laps to go, a lapped driver didn’t see me and made contact, dropping me back to P6. It was a frustrating and unfair situation.
In Race 2, I took a risk at the start, going around the outside and braking late to gain two positions. I was again in the fight for P4, but after contact from behind I was pushed wide at a hairpin, losing multiple positions. In the closing laps, I pushed hard to recover and caught the group ahead, making a huge divebomb move in the last corner on the final lap to finish P6.
The final results don’t fully reflect the pace, but overall it was a very valuable weekend. Racing at such a demanding track with almost no prior dry running, against experienced and quick local Austrian drivers, made it a great challenge.
I really enjoyed the track and the championship – I will definitely be back.
Big thanks to Szoták Dominik and Cobra Virovitica 🤝
Now the focus is on Virovitica 🇭🇷