MICHAL ŠMÍDL

IN YEARS 1998 - 2007

I’ve been competitive since I was a little kid. It all began with the first Gran Turismo video game on PS1. Back in the day no one would have thought that racing will play such a vital role in my life. Over the years, I played a lot of racing video games and visited Autodrom Most for a few times. I was thinking how different the real racing would be - to drive on a limit and to challenge yourself and your car.

IN YEARS 2008 - 2010

In 2008, I had the first opportunity to try a simulator with a steering wheel. I started playing Gran Turismo 5 Prologue which was a great game with a realistic physics. Just a few days after I had started, I broke the first world records and since then I knew I can go even further and that there is a potential. In 2009 and 2010 I switched to the most realistic simulator available called rFactor, which is even today still used by some Formula 1 teams. I was quick and successful there as well so all the achievements on Gran Turismo weren’t just coincidences.

IN YEARS 2011 - 2012

These years were the most important ones in my career. I have spent a lot of time using computers and eating bad food so I ended up with morbid obesity. In October 2011, after losing a kart race only because of my weight - I said to myself “Enough, let’s do something!“ and I have lost 37 kilograms in just 7 months. For the first time, I realized my strong will and I have set my goals for the future. I also continued racing on Gran Turismo and started to thinking about entering GT Academy in the upcoming years.

IN YEARS 2013 - 2014

I decided to enter GT Academy in 2014, so over those two years I dedicated everything to it. I was working hard on my physical condition, choosing the right food, testing racing cars and improving my driving style. Then, the GT Academy in 2014 started. I made it through the regional final in Warsaw and advanced to the next round at Silverstone where I was fighting for my dream – to become a professional racing driver. It was very intense and mentally challenging and we had to go through many things, including talking in front of the cameras in English, passing difficult physical tests and we had even a full army exam, which our team (in a line-up of Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic) totally aced. Only 42 best of the best in Europe got the opportunity to be there, from over 300 000 virtual racers across the whole Europe so that was a big success. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to the super final for the best 7 participants. Our group was very competitive and our coach, Josef Král, had a tough time sending each of us home. It was all about little details. Anyway, I gained the most experience in my racing career in that program. I drove on different variants of Silverstone circuit, participated in an oval race and also tried a circuit in Bedford. I also tried a lot of great cars, like Nissan GT-R, 370Z Nismo, Caterham SuperLight, Formula Jaguar, Jaguar JP-LM, etc. The GT Academy is the biggest achievement of my career so far. In September 2014, I joined Virtual GP which is a competition for virtual racers. It started as a 12-round championship in F1 2014 video game and it was very successful since the very beginning, especially considering it’s based in the Czech Republic. Every race was broadcasted live with a professional commentary. I won the first season with a big gap and secured a gaming laptop as the main prize.

IN YEARS 2015 - 2016

I continued racing in Virtual GP in these years. This championship has made a huge step forward by bringing real teams and sponsors. After a long battle with Jaroslav Honzík (Jardier), I managed to win another championship. Also, I had started focusing on other competitions as well – local or international. There were some great prizes for grabs, so to keep up with the competition I joined iRacing where I worked on my driving style, my race craft and focus. This move proved to be the right one, as I then succeeded in the GINETTA X ESPORTS CUP on Project CARS and gained interest from several big sim racing teams. It went really well considering it was my first ever race on Project CARS and I actually aimed for only TOP 5 before the race. By the end of the year, I was also thinking about real racing but thanks to a huge growth of sim racing I have decided to stick with it and my goals were set.

IN YEARS 2017 - 2019

I had a tough beginning of 2017 as I left my previous sim racing team and had to find a new one. Just before that, I finished 2nd in the KTM eSport Trophy on RaceRoom, which was my first ever championship on this game. Despite dealing also with some personal issues, I still remained fully focused on sim racing and finished 3rd in the ESL Multi-class series on Project CARS on PS4. It was very important for me to keep pushing and keep working hard. At the beginning of May, I was contacted by Domino Duhan, Team Redline manager, who opened the doors for me to the most successful sim racing team ever. The first championship I drove for Redline was SMS-R team championship on Project CARS. In the first stage we finished 2nd after some troubles in the last two races. Then, in the series finale - it went quite well despite we didn’t have our lead driver there. I had to fly there knowing it’s all up to me but I managed to have the most points of all drivers after three races and the team finished 2nd in the standings. I was really delighted with my result. Apart from that, I also participated in other small tournaments in different venues. I have won three different championships on different platforms and even won an invitation to the Formula 1 paddock in F1 GameZone when I travelled to Monza for the Italian GP.

On the other hand, 2018 was extremely successful for me. I finished 2nd in the Thrustmaster Virtual GP championship last year so for 2018 my goal was to win the title again. As part of the new rules, I started to work closely with Vojtěch Polesný who was my teammate at the Predator Gaming team. Our cooperation, a better driving style, professional strategy, that all was noticeable on Assetto Corsa and I have managed to win 12 out of 12 races and also won Mercedes-Benz A-Class for one year. Apart from that, I continued in Project CARS championships. I raced in two big series by A1 eSports League Austria and grabbed a 3rd place overall in the rallycross championship in Vienna. That podium result was very lucky considering a crazy moment when an unwary cameraman cutted the power to my pedals in the first final race. I left Vienna with at least an amazing feeling when most competitors, including a winner Joni Törmäla, congratulated me on my pace. The 2nd A1 series switched to Mercedes-Benz cars and despite having the same amount of points as the championship winner, my worse race lap times combined from two races demoted me to 2nd place. Another big thing was the F1 Esports series, where I joined the Haas F1 Team. Unfortunately, we struggled with a car setup in the first two races and it was not until the final races where me and my teammate Martin Štefanko could battle for some decent points. At least one bright moment in otherwise a difficult season. At the end of the year, I also got invited to the eROC 2019 race where the best sim racing drivers competed against each other. I had really good lap times and felt confident. Unfortunately, organizers struggled to swap the sides on the track correctly and I started from the outside line twice which meant I could not compete properly and ended up only in quarterfinals.

2019 was a year in which I was still racing in the Mercedes-Benz Virtual GP Championship and secured my fourth title in the series. This also meant a nice prize in the form of a Mercedes-Benz CLA for one whole year. In the summer of that year, I joined Racing Unleashed which was a completely new series that was based in Switzerland and was recommended to me to try it because of same conditions for everyone and lucrative prizes. More or less from the first race I dictated the pace and even-though I entered the championship at a later stage I managed to win the entire competition at the turn of 2019 and 2020 year. Between these races, the idea of creating a new team was born. This team was called Varga Sim Racing and was active in the world competitions for two years. The imaginary icing on the cake was receiving an award of the Golden Steering wheel for the best Czech sim racer in 2019.

IN YEARS 2020 - 2021

2020 was marked by a greater focus on the rFactor 2 platform. I entered competition from BMW, which was held on different versions of the Nürburgring track, whether it was a shorter Grand Prix track or the legendary Nordschleife. I’ve managed to take podium places regularly and secured many victories here throughout the year. The races as such had mixed or rainy conditions at times so it was good for gaining more experience. That same year I also had a few races on iRacing where I represented Autodrom Most in the EuroNASCAR Esports Series. I started in only two races and in both I was able to win. However, it wouldn't be the right year for me without racing on my favorite Assetto Corsa. Towards the end of the summer, Team Redline and I dominated the V10 R-League, a championship that was brand new at the time - with a short and interesting format, dynamic races and intense on-track battles. The best teams were part of it and I rank this achievement high. My participation in Racing Unleashed was affected by pandemic restrictions and this meant that I was unable to do a certain number of races. This absence ensured that I won the title only in the last race. However, the positive thing was that I won all the races I entered.

The entry into 2021 was again in the form of a race on rFactor 2, where I continued to gain the necessary experience. I started my activities this year by winning the Heusinkveld Peregrine Competition at the fictitious track in Maastricht with an Audi R8 GT3. In my spare time, I participated in a few time trials on the WSS (World Sim Series), where I managed to get track records on the given tracks in Assetto Corsa. The BMW SIM M2 CS Racing Cup continued this year as well, but there were fewer races and I was not as successful as the previous year. Nevertheless, I’ve still managed to grab a few wins and podiums. The V10 R-League continued in spring and I participated in the championship with Team Redline again. We set the pace throughout the whole competition but unfortunately a few mistakes on our side in the semi-finals and in the race for third place meant that we finished fourth in the overall standings. Towards the end of the year, I’ve managed to win the Czech Sim Racing Series competition. New challenge was the Le Mans Virtual championship, which we entered with Realteam Racing Hydrogen Team Redline. The five-race championship was like a roller coaster for us. We dominated the first race at Monza but the next two races, we didn't finish or were out of the points. The improvement came in the fourth race and we secured third place. We went into the final race as outsiders based on the points - the 24 Hours of Le Mans at circuit de La Sarthe but we knew it was a double points race. We trained intensively with our sister crew the whole time, hoping for a miracle that really happened in the first hours of the race. We went from second place in the race to first after a mistake by our second crew and since then, we never looked back. We drove very safely in the last few hours. Engineers and other team members recalculated other teams' points. We knew that if the standings did not change, we would win the championship by 0.5 points. We crossed the finish line in first place and the impossible became real. We won the entire championship and one of the hardest races, whether it is a virtual or a real version.

IN YEARS 2022 - 2023

In 2022, I wanted to get back to winning ways in the Racing Unleashed. I missed two races the previous season and that cost me the chance to fight for the title. So the goals were clearly set but the format of the races with a reversed order based on the championship could make the whole plan quite complicated. I knew I would have to keep my head down and wait for opportunities. I managed to win in the very second race and I knew that even with this disavantage, it was possible to get great results. I managed to win a lot of races over the course of the season, easily securing another title and winning a bonus race as well. In this race, it was impossible to practice in advance due to the fact that the drivers did not know the track. I could rely on my quick adaptation once again. The V10-R League continued its third season and it was a more successful season for me and Team Redline. We only lost in the final race and ended the season in second place overall. Le Mans Virtual also had its second edition and here we managed to win the 24-hour race at the La Sarthe circuit again but it was only enough for third place overall.

2023 was all about focusing on defending my title in RU. The season as such was full of twists and turns, incidents and overall was significantly more complicated for me in many ways. I only won two races but I always tried to maximize the points, knowing that every point would come in handy in the overall standings. Throughout the championship I had close battles with A. Sánchez and it was no different in the last race where I finished in second place. The opponent managed to win but the overall points worked in my favor and I celebrated my fourth title in this series after a nerve-wracking race.