A packed three-race Saturday opened the 2026 Baltic Touring Car Championship season at the WashCar Riga Summer Race, with the Baltic GTs delivering drama across two sprint races and a two-hour endurance finale at Biķernieki.
Race 1: Gelūnas holds on after early red flag
The Baltic GT classes, open to everything from GT3 and Super Trofeo machinery to GT4 cars and anything in between, began the new season with a small but eager ten-car grid. With the Flash Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 and the Čapkauskas Racing Lamborghini Huracán ST on the front row and separated by only tenths in qualifying, the opener promised a close fight for victory.
That hope was quickly disrupted when Artūrs Batraks spun his #69 Flash Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 and hit the tyre barrier after six of the 20 minutes, bringing out the red flag.
That left Egidijus Gelūnas in the #15 Čapkauskas Racing Lamborghini Huracán ST with a strong chance to control the remaining 14 minutes, having already built a solid lead before the stoppage.
At the restart, Romet Reisin, Paulius Urbonavičius and Audrius Piktys fought over second place. Once the opening lap after the restart had settled down, Reisin in the #49 Porsche Latvia Racing Team Cayman GT4 had taken control of the group and began closing the gap to Gelūnas through the slower, twisty final section of the Biķernieki circuit.
Half a second was as close as Reisin would get, however. Gelūnas held on in the Lamborghini to win Race 1, with Reisin finishing four seconds behind in his Porsche Cayman. Piktys completed the podium in the #4 Baltic Karting Academy Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport. Urbonavičius finished fourth in the #7 Ginetta.
Race 2: Reisin wins after Lamborghini mistake
Race 2 followed shortly after the opener, but Flash Racing’s Lamborghini was absent as the team continued repairs ahead of the evening’s two-hour endurance race.
With only Cayman and Ginetta GT4 machinery left to challenge him, Gelūnas had an almost unopposed chance to take a second win of the day. He came close, but the victory slipped away when the Lamborghini spun under braking at the back straight and speared off into the tyre barriers.
Reisin, who had been trailing Gelūnas from a distance, inherited the lead with 13 minutes remaining in his Porsche Latvia Cayman.
With a safe margin over Piktys, Reisin brought the car home to take victory in Race 2. Urbonavičius finished third in the #7 Ginetta.
Race 3: Lamborghinis return for endurance showdown
The Baltic Touring Car Championship’s Riga Summer Race weekend reached its climax on Saturday evening with a two-hour endurance race through the Biķernieki forest. With the Flash Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 and Čapkauskas Racing Lamborghini Huracán ST both repaired in time, the two eyecatchers were back on the grid for the final race of the weekend.
The full 30-car BaTCC field took the green flag at 18:00 local time. Ramūnas Čapkauskas made the best start and pulled away at the front, before Batraks began reeling him back in and applying pressure.
Mid-race safety car chaos gave Čapkauskas some breathing room again, as Batraks became caught in the pack of lapped cars during a confusing safety car-to-full course yellow phase.
The pit stops brought the Flash Racing and Čapkauskas Racing Lamborghinis back together, now with Sandis Zvidriņš at the wheel of the Latvian Flash Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 and Egidijus Gelūnas taking over the Lithuanian Čapkauskas Racing Lamborghini Huracán ST.
As they worked through lapped traffic, Gelūnas came under heavy pressure from Zvidriņš, who searched for a way past. The pair ran nose to tail, with Zvidriņš repeatedly closing the gap after losing ground in traffic, but the Latvian driver could not find a way through.
A near-spin with 20 minutes remaining ended Zvidriņš’s main spell of pressure, with the gap stabilising at around six to eight seconds.
That looked set to secure victory for the #15 Čapkauskas Racing Lamborghini Huracán ST, until one final twist. On the penultimate lap, with just one minute remaining, the Super Trofeo ran out of fuel, handing the lead to the #69 Flash Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3.
After a long day of repairs, incidents and missed chances, Flash Racing came through at the end to win the two-hour endurance race. The #15 Čapkauskas Racing Lamborghini Huracán ST still made it home in second, crawling over the finish line 43.406 seconds behind, with the #4 Baltic Karting Academy Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport completing the podium one lap down.
Next race: Baltic Touring Car Championship returns to Riga
The Baltic Touring Car Championship returns to Biķernieki for round 2 with the Stateta BRO PRO BRO Grand Prix on 5-6 June 2026.
Baltic motorsport on the rise
The Riga Summer Race showed the strength and character of the Baltic GT scene, but it is also part of a bigger story. In our feature ‘A bright future on the horizon: Baltic motorsport steps onto the European stage‘, we speak with Arūnas Gečiauskas, Jonas Gelžinis and Valters Zviedris, and look at how Baltic drivers and teams are making their mark in European endurance racing.
Photos by Raimonds Volonts
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