The competitors will drive in Slovakia, on the Slovakia Ring, located 35 km from the capital, Bratislava. The circuit has a development of 5,922 km and a width of 12 meters.
For this third round, the weekend format of the Ultimate Cup Series has been modified. Private practice starts today, Protos and GT free practice, as well as a first Formula Renault 2.0 race will take place tomorrow, qualifying practice, the last two Formula Renault races and the GT and Protos 4 Hours race will take place on Saturday.
The participants :
Single-seater: 16 Formula Renault cars are committed, all Tatuus FR 2.0
Protos and GT : 14 LMP3 and beautiful GT are committed. Due to the distant trip, some UGTFREE teams missed out on this Slovakia Ring round. But, the Ferrari 488 GT3 of the Team Visiom is here and will look to continue its momentum of the victory of Dijon.
As planned for a long time, the Ligier JS P3 of the SRT41 Team will not be in Slovakia. Also absent are the Norma M30 TFT #72 winner in Dijon in the last round and the Ligier JS P3 #4 of Speed Factory Racing.
However, alongside the Ferrari Visiom, two new LMP3 have also been introduced: The Norma M30 #2 of the Czech Janik Motorsport team (with Miro Konopka as a neighbour), as well as the Norma M30 #36 of the Scuderia Bi & Bi Italian team. The power relationship between Norma and Ligier is now balanced, with seven LMP3 for each brand.
Without the Norma TFT of the Robin family, the spearhead of the Norma M30 should be the Norma DB Autosport #21 of the Robert family, assisted by Hugo Carini.
Rankings update
Protos : The leaders in the ranking are Vincent Capillaire and Matthias Kaiser (Ligier JS P3 Wimmer Werk Motorsport #26), winners at Estoril, with a total of 62 points after two races.
They are followed by Thomas Padovani and Philippe Valenza (Ligier JS P3 Team Virage #94), 51 points, Lukas Dunner (Ligier JS P3 #26), 50 points – Dunner was absent in Dijon -, Simon Phillips, Paul Scheuschner and Edward Jonasson (Ligier JS P3 Inter Europol Competition #14), 38 points, Julien Wagg (Ligier JS P3 #94), 36 points – he was also absent in Dijon – and Maxime and Arnold Robin (Norma M30 TFT #72), the winners of the Dijon round. Estoril had a coefficient 2, Dijon a coefficient 1, which explains the differences.
GT : The leaders in the ranking, Max Mugelli and Lucien Crapiz (Renault RS01 DEMJ #23), with 65 points and won at Estoril, will not be in Slovakia. Their runners-up are Jean-Paul Pagny, Thierry Perrier and Jean-Bernard Bouvet (Ferrari 488 GT3 Visiom #1), 55 points, the Ferrari having won in Dijon.
Single-seater: Amaury Bonduel (LAMO Racing #28) is the leader with 240 points versus 192 for Sacha Lehmann (LAMO Racing #16) and 187 for Brice Morabito (TS Corse #25).
Claude FOUBERT