About me

Who am I?

Tim Novak, born in 1994, I am currently finishing masters of mechanical engineering in Ljubljana.

In my spare time I am a rally driver. My first time driving a real race car was at the age of 15 and ever since I have been coached and taught by many drivers for my rally debut in 2012, just after I turned 18. Since then I have had rather successful rallying career in Slovenia and also abroad.  

How I started?

Before my racing debut in 2012 I have spent many kilometers and hours in race cars on tracks and also rally stages. I was coached by many drivers on all surfaces, from tarmac to gravel and snow. My mentors and coaches were, among others, acknowledged Slovenian co-driver Miran Kacin, Finnish rally driver Jarkko Miettinen, former F1 and WEC driver Alexander Wurz, former WRC world champion co-driver Robert Reid and many others. I am proud to say that I am one of only few rally drivers in Slovenia that was professionally coached from the young age.

My notable results

In my first two full years I was rallying in Slovenia and I won 2 national junior titles.

Following early success my career led me abroad. In late 2014 I won the selection event for the FIA Institute Young Driver Academy and was introduced into elite top 10 young drivers of the world. That led me to one year of coaching by Alex Wurz, Robert Reid, Tom Onslow-Cole and many others. This experience boosted my career and in 2015 we won Mitropa Rally Cup in 2WD category, Junior category and managed 3rd place overall.

In 2016 and 2017 I competed in ADAC Opel Rally Cup in Germany, where I had good success. In the first year we managed 5th place and in 2017 even better 4th place from more than 20 drivers! This result led me to being in contention for Opel’s factory drive in ERC Junior championship, but we fell juts short of that.

In 2018 I returned to Slovenia with Opel Adam R2 and already in the first season we won 2 races in 2WD category and the national championship title in DIV2 at the end of the season! We managed also 3rd overall.
In 2019 we continued on the same path and won 3 races in 2WD class and we won another national DIV2 title with 2 races to spare.

My background

Besides rallying I study mechanical engineering in University of Ljubljana. During my studies I joined the Formula Student team of my University. Formula Student is a project where students design, build and race their very own formula race car. I have been a part of the project for 5 years, also 2 years as a team leader and the lead driver.

This project helped me greatly improve my theoretical and practical knowledge of vehicle dynamics, mechanical understanding of cars and help me become even better racing driver and engineer.   

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