Pavel Lefterov

Pavel Lefterov born 12 November 1997 in Sofia is without a doubt one of Bulgaria’s biggest talents and one of the youngest endurance racers in Europe. He is the only Bulgarian pilot to date to be invited to participate in the Dubay 24h endurance race and the Audi Sport TT Cup both in the 2016 season. His dream is to eventually race and win the Le Mans 24h race. Pavel started his racing career like many other professional race car pilots. In 2007 he started karting racing in the “Mini BG” category and immediately showed great promise by winning Karting Cup “Bulgaria” in the “Mini” class the following year (2008) and finishing second in the same class in 2009. Having tasted victory and with quite a few races under his belt at a very young age, Pavel moved up to the Bulgarian Karting Championships class “Formula A” in 2010 and claimed the top step of the podium in the same year. 2011 proved to be Pavel’s year and he won both the Bulgarian Karting Championship class “KF3” and the South-East European Karting Zone Championships in the same class (KF3) with a near miss of making it a hat trick he finished second in the World ROK Karting Series class “Junior Bridgestone Rok”. In 2012 Pavel started his season with a second place in the South-East European Karting Zone Championships in the KF3 class, the same one he dominated the year before. However, Pavel only learned from his mistakes and won the Bulgarian Karting Championship class “Union ROK” in the same year. Following the successful finish of the season Pavel took a brief break in 2013 only to return more determined in 2014 by winning the Bulgarian Karting Championship class KZ2 paving the way for his debut in the Euro Series by Nova Race in 2015. True to his style Pavel dominated the Euro Series by Nova Race in 2015 by winning the ES+ class and the under 25 years old class in the same season becoming Vice Champion in both classes, despite still not having a driving licence at the time. But Pavel did not stop there and decided to make amends for past mistakes and managed to win a third title in 2015 – the Vice Championship title in the European Competition GT4 series class AM. Audi Sport TT Cup 2016 Pavel in the only Bulgarian invited to race in the Audi Sport TT Cup to date and will be making his debut this year under racing number 6. He was shortlisted along with 19 other racers from the 165 candidates from 30 countries after undertaking both physical and psychological tests. The format will place 20 cars with identic specifications through 14 races over 7 racing weekends in the following order:

• 6 May – 8May Hockenheim • 26 May – 29 May Nürburgring • 24 June – 16 June Norisring • 15 July – 17 July Zandvoort • 9 September – 11 September Nürburgring • 23 September – 25 September Budapest • 14 October – 16 October Hockenheim

However, racers in the format will not only be focusing on the track, Philipp Mondelaers Head of organisation has prepared media workshops to prepare the young driver for the challenges that come after an endurance race – enduring the press. Philipp Mondelaers: “The Audi Sport TT Cup is more than just a racing series. We’d like to provide the young drivers with driving fundamentals for a career as a professional race driver and, at the same time, impart exemplary demeanour outside the cockpit to them. This necessarily includes workshops such as media training. “ But one thing at a time, drivers will have to earn the right to be in the spotlight and Mr Mondelaers confirmed this will be no easy task as after 37 hours of aggregate, 955 laps on total and nearly 4,400 kilometres the drivers were very close in terms of times.