Janík Motorsport’s Mat’o Homola was relieved to score what was only his second points visit in Sunday’s final TCR Europe race at Spa-Francorchamps, where the Slovak driver finished as runner-up to team-mate Jáchym Galáš.
Homola started the reverse-grid race from the second row of the grid directly behind his team-mate, and after getting the jump on front-row starter Tom Coronel when the lights went out, he then held second for the remainder of the race.
He praised team-mate Galáš for claiming his first win in the series, and like Galáš he believes the belief in the team will lead to stronger results in the future.
“It was a great race and my congratulations to Jáchym,” said Homola. “He’s young, he’s fast and he’s a good kid, a great driver. He’s proven it today, and I’m happy for him.
“I’m happy for the team and for sure we needed this. We are a small team from the Czech Republic, and now we have proven we can win races, we can be the fastest ones.”
The 27-year-old has suffered from a string of non-finishers in recent races where, despite being classified in the results, he has failed to take the chequered flag for various incidents.
Homola was thus relieved not only to score his first podium finish of the season, but also to make it to the finish in the points.
“In my race, the most important thing I want to mention is that I finally managed to finish the race, because this is only my second race finish from six.
“Finally, some good points and the most important thing was to have a good start and support the overall team effort.”