Four years ago, Muscovite Konstantin Sugrobov drove only in a rolling picture. And now he shares the racing prototype with Vitaly Petrov, the first Russian racer of Formula 1. Residents of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region this Saturday can hear the story of success from the athlete himself … And we tell the rest.
This weekend, on the Igor Drive highway near St. Petersburg, one of two in a row of racing weeks of G-Drive SMP RSKG will be held. As usual, spectators will be able to not only see the competitions with the stands, but also chat with racers during a walk on the pit lane, touch the cars on excursions to the boxes, drive on racing simulators, grab a passenger on the highway in a supercar … However, we will not immerse ourselves in an entertainment program-all the details are better to know on the website of the racing series.
Marat Daminov
On Sunday, all day on the highway will drive pilots on inexpensive sportsmen – such as well -known fans of fast driving Russian Shortcut. They collect these cars in the suburbs, but in races does not know equal pilots from the Leningrad region. Andrei Gromov became the owner of the Russian Cup a year ago, at the opening of this season, he won both races – and the rivals of Andrei again spent the last few weeks in painful thoughts, so the rapidly thunder and how to catch up with him. And to those who still cannot recover after losing the title of football “zenith” or the departure of the hockey skate in the first round of the Gagarin Cup, it is best to come to the track on Sunday. The chances of seeing how a fellow countryman puts rivals from other regions on the shoulder blades of rivals.
On Saturday, the main event of the day is a 4-hour race, the struggle for the victory in which, to put it mildly, are not cheap cars. For example, racing versions of the Mercedes-AMG GT or Lamborghini Huracan supercars-if you buy such a car new, it can easily cost 40-50 million rubles.
The main competitors of foreign cars-the BR03 protototypes gathering in Moscow (out of the last 10 races they won 8)-one and a half to two times cheaper, but are also considered the technique “not for everyone”. And not only in terms of finance. 420 hp For 950 kg of mass in the absence of ABS and track control (which AMG and LAMBO have), the front fairing and the rear wing generate a decent amount of clamping force-not to master such a machine in five minutes. And it looks quite logical that, for example, the BR03 crew with the starting number 1 includes Vitaly Petrov (the first Russian Formula 1 pilot) and Kirill Ladygin (winner “24 hours of Le Mans”, participant in the WTCC World Cup, and so on).
However, next to these two famous riders you can see the third. His face is unlikely to be familiar, and the name – Konstantin Svugrobov – will not say anything to the average fan of races. Meanwhile, this 18-year-old Muscovite performs in the same crew with Vitaly and Cyril-and after the finish of the first race of this season, he climbed the second step of the podium along with his titled teammates. Who is this and for what merits he received a place next to the great?
Right now, in June, a similar picture takes place at 25 rental card -covers throughout Russia: children and adolescents come with the question: how to take part in “SMP Racing / Gazprom”? A complex name is of an open amateur tournament, which is held annually. First, selection on each of the participating tracts (from Kaliningrad to Blagoveshchensk), then regional semi-finals-and finally, the final in Moscow. He determines the winners in three age groups. And the next year, these winners, with the financial support of the G-Drive SMP Racing program, spend a whole season in adult races-picture or ring.
Konstantin Sugrobov became the winner of the tournament in 2022. Of course, you should not think that the victory was won by clicking – that the teenager in May first sat behind the wheel, and in September he had already accepted congratulations on the first place. Prior to this, the young Muscovite participated in rental competitions for more than one year and actively trained. But many talented children are limited to this. In the standard version of building a career, sports focus should go further – but this is a very expensive activity that has far from every family for money. And Konstantin had no opportunity to continue his career in the Russian championships. Victory in “SMP Racing / Gazprom-Children” in a sense became the chance of all life.
But this chance still had to be used. Every year, three people win the tournament – and do not think that everyone is guaranteed a place in the same crew with Vitaly Petrov. In the case of many winners, the prize season does not give a career any noticeable impulse. In addition, Sugrobov spent his prize season at the wheel of an inexpensive MITJET sports car. Competitions on these machines gather a small number of participants, they also get a little media attention – even if you put all rivals on the shoulder blades here, this is unlikely to lead to great interest from fans, the media and sponsors.
But the G-Drive SMP Racing program has been engaged in the search and support of talented youth for more than ten years, its experts do not need a media tinsel to make out the athlete’s abilities. And Konstantin Sugrobov quickly attracted attention to a combination of several valuable qualities at once. In sports terms – a high speed of adaptation to a new technique and stability of the pace. In the psychological-high working capacity and the complete absence of any star, which sometimes seriously inhibits the progress of adolescents after the first successes.
All this, the Muscovite, according to the results of the debut season, became the best among Mitjet racer, earned another year of performances on the same technique. What put the next, very peculiar challenge to the young man. Konstantin was already the fastest, in the new season, none of the rivals could act at the same level – and in such conditions, even a professional athlete risk losing motivation. Why make efforts, even if you guarantee a victory by 60 percent of your capabilities? But Konstantin continued to work on himself and the machine, continued to look for speed reserves, continued to extract hundreds and tenths of a second. And representatives of the G-Drive SMP Racing carefully followed this and understood that in front of them there was more than another giving hope for a young racer with an uncertain future.
And this year Konstantin was able to reach a new level. In the course of the first race as part of the star crew, which was in mid -May on the Moscow Raceway highway, the potential source of problems was not only increased responsibility. The four-hour marathon took place in rainy weather, and under these conditions the BR03 are inferior to imported supercars-after all, there are ABS and track control that are absent on Russian prototypes on Mercedes-AMG and Lamborghini. In order to have the chances of victory, Svugrobov and his titled teammates had to go to the limit, without any reserve. And the risk of making a mistake in such a situation as it is easy to guess is seriously increasing. But Konstantin once again ended up on top. He could not defeat the crew under number 1, but minimized the losses and finished the race in the second position.
Of course, with all the compliments made by the young racer, it is too early to call him the new star of Russian motorsport. However, the 4-hour race, which will be held on the highway of Igor Drive on Saturday, may well become another stone in the foundation of a bright career.
Do you want to talk with Konstantin yourself (as well as Petrov, Ladygin and other participants in Russian ring racing)? This is easy to do if you arrive on Saturday on the Igor Drive highway. At 14:10 Pit Lane will open for the audience, where cars starting in the race will be built and athletes will go out to communicate with the fans. You can find out more about two racing weeks at the Igor’s Autodrome by this link. /m
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