Friday favourite: The underrated track that saved a Honda ace’s career

Even though he concedes it’s sequence of long apexes can be “a little bit monotonous”, there’s good reason for Honda WTCR ace Esteban Guerrieri citing Brno as his favourite track. That’s because his two Formula Renault 3.5 victories at the Czech venue in 2010 effectively saved his career.

A cash-strapped Guerrieri, who had raced in the final season of Formula 3000 in 2004 before lack of funds pushed him back into Formula 3, had already proven himself to be a race-winning force at Spa with the ISR team. But the Argentinian’s presence in the team alongside team boss Igor Salaqarda’s son Filip was on a race-by-race basis, and the arrival of a paying driver for Monaco meant he had to step out of the cockpit.

When Guerrieri returned on the team’s home ground in Brno, he duly took a brace of wins and went on to fight for a title that he was only denied by a controversial technical disqualification at Silverstone for a non-homologated piece of tape on his front wing. Proving it was nonsense, he won again the following day (pointedly appearing on the podium with a piece of tape across his mouth) and ended the year third, behind future IndyCar midfielder Mikhail Aleshin and eight-time F1 race-winner Daniel Ricciardo.

Guerrieri recalls: “When I did 3.5 in 2010, I won both races there, that allowed me to continue the championship with Igor Salaquarda. He called me one week before the first race and then I was race-by-race basically, he was paying my seat and I was coaching Filip during the year.

“Some days before the race, Igor comes and says, ‘Esteban, let’s go and drive, please don’t crash and let’s try to win’. We were both there in the front row, and they were very fair with me. They said, ‘There is no team orders, whoever