The always spectacular racing of the Twingo Cup opened the season at Automotodrom Grobnik, featuring field from the F4 CEZ Academy project. Race 1 delivered numerous close battles, an unfortunate crash and a dramatic photo finish on dry conditions, which was exactly opposite of rainy friday practice.
Giacomo Pegazzano and Thomas Schmidt started from the front row, with Martin Varga and Oliver Šteiner lining up on the second row. The third row belonged to broadcaster Pavel Fabry, who swapped the microphone for a steering wheel, alongside Martin Toth.
The start of the race was remarkably clean, with no major contact between the drivers. Pegazzano held onto the lead, while Schmidt, Varga, Toth and Šteiner fought for the remaining podium positions.
As Pegazzano began pulling away from the field, Schmidt, Varga, Toth and Šteiner battled intensely behind him, using the slipstream on the long straight to their advantage. The leading group was soon caught by Fabry as well.
At the halfway point of the race, a major and unfortunate incident brought out the safety car. Slight contact between two battling cars sent Oliver Zajíc directly into the path of Lukáš Bílek, who had no chance to avoid the accident and crashed heavily into Zajíc ahead and then into the barriers.
The safety car returned to the pits with three and a half minutes remaining. Pegazzano retained the lead ahead of Šteiner and Schmidt, while Fabry ran fourth under heavy pressure from Dylan Stebler.
Šteiner stayed very close to leader Pegazzano, preparing his decisive move. Using the slipstream out of the final corner on the last lap, Šteiner overtook Pegazzano and claimed victory by just 0.087 seconds.
Schmidt finished third, while Fabry secured fourth place only 0.068 seconds ahead of Stebler. Varga finished sixth, while Lukáš Houlík beat Noah Bognanni by 0.068 seconds in the battle for seventh place. David Toth crossed the finish line ninth and Peter Drahoš rounded out the top 10.
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