In the 2023 NASCAR GP Czech Republic, Patrick Schober made a big step forward by finishing on the EuroNASCAR 2 podium for the first time. Fast forward a year later to the 2024 edition, the Austrian continued his successful track record at Autodrom Most with his second career victory in EuroNASCAR 2 Round 8. It was Schober’s first win with the French team RDV Competition. Starting from Pole Position for the first time, the 20-year old driver confirmed his mastery of the 4.212-kilometer circuit with a lights to flag victory from Martin Doubek and Melvin de Groot.
Schober had to survive one restart period, caused by a multi-car incident at the infamous turn 1, and an extended race distance after the Safety Car was called to clean the track from debris. De Groot challenged the Austrian for the longest, but his tires ran out of grip at the latter part of the race. That allowed Doubek to overtake the tall Dutchman on lap 9, but the home hero had no answer to Schober’s pace. Doubek did manage to beat the RDV Competition driver for the fastest lap by just 0.024 seconds, therefore securing him pole position for Round 9 on Sunday.
“The first 8-10 laps were so tough because I had so much pressure behind me, but I managed it perfectly and finally got my first win for RDV Competition!” said Schober in the Victory Lane. “They’ve done a great job in setting up the car, Paul [Jouffreau] did a great job in his race and I’m really proud to finally be back here! There’s still halfway to go in the season, so anything’s possible. I obviously will fight as much as possible for the title, but it will be tough because the competition is really good.”
Thomas Toffel had a strong race to finish fourth for the fourth time in 2024. Claudio Remigio Cappelli put on a show with his sensational driving style, finishing fifth overall and second in the Legend Trophy behind de Groot. Linster was once again unlucky. He got involved in the first lap incident but recovered to finish sixth. Thomas Krasonis was seventh ahead of Mario Ercoli who took his first Rookie Trophy win of the season and his career.
Victor Neumann, second among the rookies, and Michael Bleekemolen, third in the Legend Trophy, completed the top-10 positions. Problems in Qualifying prevented Nick Strickler from setting a lap time, but he kept his car clean during the race and finished eleventh to earn the bonus points for most positions gained. Thomas Dombrowski and Florian Richard, who ended up third in the Rookie Trophy, nursed a heavily battle-scarred car to finish 12th and 13th. Arianna Casoli on her 99th start took another Lady Trophy win in 14th, her rival Luli del Castello being involved in a separate first lap incident that immediately took the Italian out of the race.
At the top of the standings, Doubek has once again extended his lead. The Czech driver is now 38 points ahead of Linster, with Schober narrowing his own gap down to 43 points. The three Thomases – Toffel, Krasonis, and Dombrowski – followed in fourth, fifth and sixth respectively. Michael Bleekemolen still leads the Legend Trophy in eighth, but with de Groot and Cappelli inching closer. Florian Richard now takes the Rookie Trophy lead in eleventh overall. For the first lap mayhem, Julien Rehberg and Reza Sardeha got 20-points penalties. The same occurred to Luli Del Castello for a contact under full course yellow. Rehberg is now 24 points behind Richard in the Rookie Trophy standings, while Neumann is second in class with a six points gap from the Frenchman.
The festivities from the NASCAR GP Czech Republic will resume on Sunday with Rounds 9 for both EuroNASCAR 2 and EuroNASCAR PRO, in which the broadcast will go live on 10:55 CEST and 14:15 CEST respectively. All races from EuroNASCAR’s fifth visit to the Czech Republic will be broadcast live on EuroNASCAR’s YouTube channel and several TV networks from all around the world
