Uncharted territory: Preview Hankook 24H SLOVAKIA RING

Once again, CREVENTIC, promoters and organisers of the 24H SERIES powered by Hankook and the Touring Car Endurance Series (TCES) powered by Hankook, are adding a new country to their list. Next week, the inaugural Hankook 24H SLOVAKIA RING (June 14-16, 2016) will be held at the eponymous circuit, not too far away from Bratislava. The addition of a race in Slovakia brings the total of countries to have hosted CREVENTIC events so far to eight. “Visiting a new country and having a race there for the first time is always exciting, so anticipation is high,” says CREVENTIC’s Daphne Gengler. The race at Slovakia Ring is the second round of this year’s Touring Car Endurance Series (TCES) powered by Hankook. For the first time, a CREVENTIC race event will be held only on weekdays: practice and qualifying are scheduled on Tuesday, the race will take place on Wednesday and Thursday.

Entry list
Time schedule

For the inaugural Hankook 24H SLOVAKIA RING, 16 teams have entered while 12 different nationalities will be represented in the field. “We greatly appreciate the support and the enthusiasm of the entered teams and their strong commitment, together with us, to make the Hankook 24H SLOVAKIA RING happen,” says Daphne Gengler. “We understand that we need to start up the Touring Car Endurance Series powered by Hankook this year, in spite of the fairly late announcement, to be able to run at full speed in 2017. For next year, many teams already have expressed their interest.”

The TCR class is a SEAT-only affair, with local team ARC Bratislava by Ferry Monster Autosport as one of the entrants. Slovakian racer Miro Konopka has participated in almost every CREVENTIC event held so far! In the all-Slovakian line-up, he is joined by his son Matej as well as Zdeno Mikulasko, Miro Hornak and Andy Studenic, who has plenty of international experience as well. Following popular demand by teams, the SP3 class has been added to the field as well to replace the current SP Touring class. SP3 caters for grand touring cars and touring cars with a performance at the level of GT4 cars and thus perfectly fits into the TCES speed range. To balance the performance between the TCR class as the top touring car category and the nominally slightly more powerful SP3 machines, a time penalty/pit stop system has been put into place. The positive effect is that SP3 teams don’t need to change their cars, they can go flat out within the class limits. The SP3 and CUP1 classes currently are the exclusive domain of BMW race cars while the A2 class has three Renault Clios up against one BMW E46 123D, one SEAT Leon TDI and one Volkswagen Golf V TDI.

Free practice, qualifying and night practice all take place in the evening of Tuesday, June 14. On Wednesday, June 15, there is a warm-up from 11.30 till 12.00. The race gets underway at 14.00 with the finish on Thursday, June 16, at the same time, followed by a podium ceremony for all classes. There is no live streaming for this event, but a dedicated team will be on site to keep everyone updated with news, videos, photos, tweets and posts, to be followed at www.tourincarcenduranceseries.com, facebook.com/24hseries and twitter.com/24hseries. Further information about the Touring Car Endurance Series powered by Hankook can be found at www.touringcarenduranceseries.com and www.24hseries.com.