Jarek Janis

Date of birth: 08/07/1983
Nationality: Czech
Place of birth: Czech
Weight: 72 kg
Height: 179 cm
Occupation: Racing driver
First race: 07/09/1991, kart race in Ceska Lipa

Jarek Janiš was born on 8th July 1983 in Olomouc, Czech Republic. He started his racing career in go-kart races in 1991. When he was twelve, he won ICA class of Czech  championship for the first time. Then he achieved first place in ICA class of Czech go-kart championship in further three seasons again. In 1998 he took fifth place in the same class of European go-kart championship, while he began to gain first experience in single-seaters.

Joining German Formula Ford championship, Jarek took the same way as Tomas Enge severel years before. He achieved seventh place in 1999 and in the following season to win the runners-up spot in the championship. In the winter months at the start of 2001 he starred in the Formula Palmer Audi Winter Series, winning two races and taking the third place overall in the final standings.

Seventeen-year-old Jarek Janiš was supposed to be one of the stars in the Formula Palmer Audi Series but in early April 2001 Dr. Palmer cancelled his championship. The manager, Antonín Charouz found a replacement competition in Formula Renault which is where the present formula 1 driver, the Finn Kimi Räikkönen, came from. However, there was a hitch to this solution because all the best teams were full. Jarek ended up in a team of newcomers, just as he was. Instead of competing to win he had to fight problems with his unreliable car and ended up in the middle of the field.

In the end he only drove four races with the Formula Renault car and then switched to a drive with a leading team of the German Formula 3 championship, the Swiss KMS. In the fourth race behind the wheel of this machine he won his first points for the championship.

In the 2001 season Jarek Janiš drove formula cars in four different categories and performance levels. He exchanged drives in the Palmer Audi, Renault, F3 and F3000 formulas. In early August 2001 he also drove the Panoz sports car on the Most circuit as part of the ELMS series. In 2001 he became a test driver for the Formula 1 Prost Acer team.

In 2002 Jarek raced in the first Czech team of the Formula 3000 European Series, which is the preparatory stage for the international FIA F3000 Championship. In the European Formula 3000 series he took an excellent third place overall by winning the last race of the championship in the street race in Cagliari in Sardinia.

Jarek spent the 2003 season in the FIA F3000 International Championship. His manager, Antonín Charouz, agreed a partnership with Sigi Müller, the manager of the German PSM Racing Line. The Czech licenced team was called PSM I.S.R. Charouz. In the same year he became the second Czech to test for Formula 1. The tests were held in Jerez, Spain with the Jordan Ford team.

Last year Janiš switched from formula cars to touring car racing in the German DTM Championship with the Sonax Dark Dog AMG Mercedes team. At the end of the season he sat in the cockpit of a ChampCar series car for the first time and having passed the tests successfully he participated in the Australian Surfers Paradise race with the Dale Coyne Racing team. Subsequently, he did two more tests in the Forsythe Racing team car where he was among the fastest. He was the first Czech in the ChampCar Series.

Jarek Janiš began the 2005 season with the Kondo Racing team in the Japanese Formula Nippon Championship. The start of the season was adversely affected by bad weather and technical problems which prevented him from making a full use of official tests. He therefore started the season with limited experience on dry tracks and this unfortunately turned out to be a major handicap. He suffered throughout the Suzuka and Motegi races and was also plagued by technical problems. Nevertheless did he manage to shine in the partially wet race in Sugo where he led the field.

In the same year, Janiš participated in the Italian Formula 3000 championship where he immediately debuted in the second race in the season in Vallelunza with the ma-con Charouz Junior team. He was one of the fastest drivers on the track from the off and took second place in the race. He was taking top places also at the end of the season and took the second place overall.

At the end of the year he became a member of the Czech Republic team in the World Nations Series and sat in the cockpit of a race car for the first time in Malaysia on the Friday free testing day.

Jarek Janiš had an excellent start to the 2006 season in the new F3000 International Masters where he won several races. He thus contributed to the title in the team competition for Charouz Racing System Junior team. During the rest of the season he accepted an offer to participate in the prestigious FIA GT races in the Saleen S7R car of the Zakspeed team. In FIA GT he was for a long while in contention for the GT1 category title. Jarek won the prestigious Newcomer of the Year title. In the 2006 season Jarek participated in several A1GP races and in the 2006/2007 season he was a member of the Czech A1GP team. At home, in the Czech Republic, Jarek raced in the Czech Republic circuit championship with the Mercedes Benz AMG CLK DTM car. He drove a BMW Z4 Coupe in the last race and won the race in his category.

After an accident in the extremely fast and dangerous Eau Rouge bend in the Le Mans Series 2007 race in the Belgian Spa-Francochamps circuit, Jarek Janiš had to take one year break in his racing career due to a spinal injury. In the summer of 2007 the successful Olomouc driver left the Spyker Squadron (Le Mans Series) and Scuderia Ecosse (FIA GT) teams and his forced break was only interrupted by his participation in two A1GP races where he took part in training for newcomers at the A1GP Taupo (New Zealand) and Sydney (Australia) races. However, the FIA GT 2006 star did not leave the racing environment entirely during his convalescence. Jarek was close at hand for his colleagues, Štěpán Vojtěch and Adam lacek and, in particular, his younger brother Erik in the F3 Euro Series. One year after the accident, in the middle of September 2008, Jarek finally drove a racing car again in the ICRC in Brno and beat his opponents immediately in the top Division 4. The former Formula 1 Jordan test driver won the Sprint Division 4 over 2000 ccm qualification and took third place in the race. In addition to this bronze medal, Jarek scored a silver medal in the endurance race in Brno where he participated together with Antonín Charouz, Nicolas Kiesa and Pedro Lamy.

Jarek spent 2008 undergoing intensive physiotherapy and physical training. His performance at the end of the year with the DTM car in the Czech championship showed that he is in excellent physical shape and has lost nothing of his speed.

For 2009 season Jarek became official driver of Spyker Squadron team. He shared the Spyker C8 Laviolette GT2R car with Tom Coronel in the Le Mans Series and in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. In the famous race he finished fifth in LMGT2 class, what was the first finish for manufacturer team Spyker in Le Mans. Jarek also participated in the brand new Lamborghini Super Trofeo series with Lamborghini Racing Eastern Europe team and appeared in the Czech Touring Car Championship with Mercedes-Benz DTM car with Sauto.cz Racing Team.