The trajectory has been meteoric for Porsche customer team Pure Rxcing. Seemingly out of nowhere, it’s a team that has burst onto the scene in GT3 racing, going from the Bronze Cup of World Challenge Europe to a full-season FIA WEC LMGT3 team nominated by Porsche in just 12 months.
The accolades are racking up, the Lithuanian team running fastest in Qualifying at the Spa 24 Hours last June, sealing the Bronze Cup title (and a Le Mans invite to boot) at the end of the season, before taking the Asian Le Mans GT crown by storm over the winter.
Team owner Edgar Kochanovskij said at Yas Marina that the story to this point is “not particularly interesting”, but DSC begs to differ, this is an outfit that’s making history, and doing so in fine style.
It all began, Kochanovskij says, when he started working at Lithuanian rallycross events as a 16-year-old, before he moved to the UK.
His local circuit after moving was Brands Hatch, and that’s where the journey to sportscar racing began. One day he decided to go to see some classic racing at the Kent circuit. “I met a few teams and asked if I could get involved,” he explained, before getting a call up to work at the Le Mans Classic.
“From there it was word of mouth, people started talking about me and I ended up in Porsche Carerra Cup GB for a few years.
“From the outside, it looks like I’ve come from nowhere,” he continued. “But I’ve been involved in motorsport since I was a teenager in 2006, as a mechanic or an engineer. I was the main mechanic for one of the leading (Porsche Carrera Cup) GB teams and I met one of my customers now. We were lacking something though, I was always thinking I could do better, so I started my own team.
“What I don’t like about a lot of teams is they put so much effort into trying to look professional, but forget about the racing. That’s why we are called Pure Rxcing. We concentrate on racing and technical preparation first. The look comes after.”
From there his ambition grew and he ended up utilising both Herberth Motorsport and Manthey for support as he moved from single-make Porsche racing into the GT3 arena.
What I don’t like about a lot of teams is they put so much effort into trying to look professional, but forget about the racing
“When I started, I knew that if I wanted to compete with other teams, I needed to find shortcuts. So I had to find support from other teams to learn how to do it properly,” he explained.
“Manthey has helped me a lot with engineering. As a customer, Manthey we pay for that service. Why try learning what they know from years of experience? You hire them and they do what you need.
“I have two guys from Manthey, a data engineer and a performance engineer. I have had big help from Herberth too when we started. We needed workshop tools, which they helped with us. But now we are almost fully independent.”
It wasn’t long before GT3 racing was on the radar and the team made its debut a year ago in Dubai at the 24 Hours.
The success came fast after Dubai, with an overall pole and a class podium at the Spa 24 Hours later in the year, a Bronze Cup title and now a place in the FIA WEC.
Lithuania is far from a motorsport hotbed, but this is something Pure Rxcing hopes to change. In the background, Kochanovskij is working to help develop talent from his home nation. It’s a real source of pride.
“Lithuanian motorsport is very small,” he said. “To find guys to fill all the positions is basically impossible. I’m training two guys this year to get them up to speed at the level they need to be. They’ve been mechanics previously in rallying and drifting but in the Baltics. I’m trying to get them to the level to be able to compete at world-class motorsport.
Following its Bronze Cup title, the team’s most recent success came over the winter in the Asian Le Mans Series.
As part of a hotly contested GT field of over 20 GT3 cars entered by aspirant teams on the ACO ladder, Pure Rxcing and its trio of Klaus Bachler, Joel Sturm and Alex Malykhin won two races and survived a shock DNF in the penultimate race of the season to take the title in the finale with a second-place finish.
By winning the title, Pure Rxcing had earned two invitations to enter the Le Mans 24 Hours, no small feat. However, despite initially planning to run three cars in the race, additional driver line-ups to the standard the team hoped to field didn’t come together in time. Thus, the team will race with just one car at La Sarthe and wait for the 2024/25 Asian Le Mans Series season to “try and win an invitation again”.
This is because, in Kochanovskij’s words, “we will only race if I can find a line-up that I am happy to put my name on.”
This weekend the team embarks on its first globetrotting tour in the FIA WEC and will hope to add to its growing list of achievements.
This is alongside its planned return to GT World Challenge, which will see it switch class to Pro, because it has “nothing more to achieve” in the Bronze Cup. “We will try in Pro, with the same line-up.”
“Le Mans wasn’t the big goal,” he revealed. “The main goal for me is simple, just win as many races as possible. My philosophy is that if you finish third, second, third, second, but still win a title, it doesn’t count. But the Le Mans ticket means a lot, we will be the first Lithuanian team to participate. It’s a significant record.”
With Bachler, Malykhin and Sturm confirmed for the season, Kochanovskij believes he has a driver line-up strong enough to match his and Manthey’s ambitions.
“We are in the FIA WEC because Manthey and Pure Rxcing both needed each other,” he concluded. “We needed Manthey to help us compete, and we have a line-up capable of winning to bring.
“You need a good Silver and a Bronze and when you have a Bronze as quick as Alex, it’s what you need to be successful.”
