Pavel Valoušek wants to get closer to becoming the Czech champion
PRESS RELEASE no. 5
The Barum Rally is a holiday for drivers from the Zlin vicinity who grew up on the roads where this event is held. This year many crews will take part in the rally in order to get good points for the Czech championship.
A remarkable attention will be paid to Pavel Valoušek, leader of the total classification of the Czech championship. Two years ago he was chosen as a Czech talent in terms of the Goodrich Drivers Team and participated in the rally with a Peugeot 207 S2000 of the Belgium team Kronos. This year he is participating with factory support of the Škoda Delimax Team and he fully focuses on the Czech championship, trying to become the Czech champion. “We are supported by a strong team which takes perfect care of everything. The car works brilliantly. It’s the best car I’ve raced with so far but it’s also the most difficult to control,“ said Valoušek. He has four rallies including the Barum Rally left to finish in terms of the Czech championship. In the last-years star competition he finished on the sixth position and was the fourth best Czech pilot. However, he could have ended up on a better position but he had technical difficulties. “There were many excellent drivers and we could have ended up even higher if he had had luck but it’s a great position, anyway. I expect that the competition will be even better this year and it will be very hard to get to top five,“ said Valoušek.
Last year Antonín Tlusťák had the best result at the Barum Rally in his career. He won the two-wheel-drive class and became the European champion. He has changed his Citroën C2 S1600 for Škoda Fabia S2000 and he likes the change. He is focusing mainly on the European championship this year.
“We have finished two events so far – Mille Miglia, Italy and Rijeka, Croatia. We specialize in rallies on asphalt surface. We didn’t do too well in Italy but we were fifth in Croatia, which is a good result. We are still getting to know the car. Therefore, we’d like to take part in as many events as possible,“ explained Tlusťák and also added that he is getting more and more certain with more and more kilometres driven in this car. “I’m still learning and collecting experience but each kilometre it gets better. It’s a really big difference. One does things in extreme conditions, such as on water, the way one used to with a two-wheel-drive, which is wrong. I know I don’t solve many situations in the best way but I’m trying to work on it. I hope I’ll be perfectly fine with the car until the Barum Rally and we’ll fight for the best possible position,“ said Tlusťák. He is also clear about his ambitions. “We don’t think of medals at all because the competition will be huge but we’d still like to fight over the best possible position around the 10th position,“ said the driver who also has to deal with the fact that many stages will be shorter than they were in the past. “I’m used to long stages from the European championship, some of them are even thirty kilometres long but the Barum Rally is an extremely difficult event during which punctures can often happen, so that if sometimes happens, the loss isn’t so big and it’s possible to repair the car fast. I’m glad about shorter stages from this point of view,“ concluded Tlusťák.
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