In the first race, only Leonardo Gorini with a Porsche 992 GT2 got ahead of Krabec. “In Dijon, it became clear how powerful Porsches are. In the first race, Gorini passed me and there was no chance of catching him, he was faster than us on the straights,” Krabec describes.
In the second race, the roles were reversed and Krabec easily won over his opponent. In addition, he performed a great chase, in which he worked his way through the field of opponents after the change and even got ahead of Gorini in a direct fight. “I’m really happy with the second race. It’s clear that we have a good pace, especially in the second half, and we can deal with a very good opponent – both driver and car,” says Krabec.
The team had to work with two handicaps at once. The winning event in Austria resulted in a mandatory longer pit stop, and RTR projects did not have a fully-fledged qualifying session. “We did not have an aggressive enough setup for qualifying, so we did not start from the position we wanted to be in. It is very difficult to overtake on the track in Dijon, so qualifying was important from this perspective,” says team boss Tomáš Fanta. In addition, in the first race, the safety car did not help RTR projects, preventing Krabac from gaining a lead over the PRO category drivers in the second half of the race.
The second race was also held on Saturday, with just under five hours between the two races. In the hot weather, this meant a great strain on Krabec’s fitness, but the pilot showed his best performance of the entire weekend, especially at the end of the race. The team’s X-BOW GT2 received a more aggressive setup and Krabec handled the race tactically as well. “Honza drives very smartly, he sticks to our tactics of not fighting with opponents who don’t make sense, saving the car and tires and waiting for the right time in the second half of the race,” says Tomáš Fanta of the driver. 
Krabec praised the car’s handling in the second half of the race. “It’s harder at the beginning because of the full tank, but in the second half it suits my style much better,” says the driver. Like Fanta, he is determined to focus more on qualifying in the next races. “We are used to the model of alternating qualifying and racing, where in the second qualifying you have data and experience from the first race. Here, there are two qualifications relatively close together. We have to get used to this format more.”
RTR projects with Jan Krabec increased their lead at the top of the AM category over the factory KTM True Racing team and their driver Klaus Angehofer to 20 points. RTR projects will face the next GT2 European Series event in five weeks in Portugal at the Portimao circuit.
