Saturday morning at the Slovakia Ring featured the first Twingo Cup race of the weekend, with more than 20 cars lining up on the long main straight to battle for victory. The win ultimately went to former two-time Twingo Cup champion Nik Štefančič.
The early part of the race was led by North Macedonian teammates Marko Blazevski and Stefan Treneski, who had worked together in qualifying and pulled away from the field on the time sheets.
However, racing is always a different story. As soon as the red lights went out, multiple battles unfolded across the field. The first corner was clean, with Blazevski and Treneski maintaining the lead, followed closely by Štefančič. It didn’t take long for Štefančič to retake the lead and take command of the race on the wide Slovakian circuit.
With the cars constantly swapping positions in tight slipstream battles, the lead changed several times. Štefančič, Blazevski and Nikola Jančič, all held the lead at some point.
An eight-car leading group emerged, including Jančič, Blaževski, Štefančič, Treneski, Kovačič, Sovička, Cerar, and Grm. After Jančič technical problems, Taj Kovačič lost control of his car, went off track, and unfortunately took Troy Sovička out with him.
Štefančič and Blaževski managed to pull away slightly from the rest of the field, with Blaževski staying close and preparing for a final-lap attack. However, Štefančič defended successfully and crossed the line just 0.139 seconds ahead to win the opening race.
Rok Cerar finished third, just ahead of Stefan Treneski, who was the best performer from the F4 CEZ Academy project. The Academy aims to reward the top driver of the weekend with a Formula 4 test. Luka Grm finished fifth, followed by Giovanni Grasso in sixth. Academy members Oliver Gmuca and Oliver Šteiner finished seventh and eighth, respectively.
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