As the young Estonian driver prepares to line up among the clear favorites for the upcoming round in Valkenswaard, Pace Motorsport’s rising talent makes no secret of his satisfaction after a remarkably strong season opener at Montalegre.
Scoring 50 out of a possible 60 points over the course of the first weekend of the 2025 season, Martin Juga delivered a commanding performance to emerge as the second-best overall driver at Montalegre—just behind surprise standout Alexander Lindeqvist.
With two podium finishes, three qualifying race wins, and three fastest laps to his name, the LifeLive driver left no doubt: he’s well and truly in the fight for the RallyX title.
“Honestly, it’s pretty close to a perfect start to the season,” Juga admits.
“Right from Thursday’s shakedown, I felt great behind the wheel, which gave me the confidence I needed heading into this new track and the first two races. Sure, the first free practice session didn’t go the way I’d hoped.”
“I made a few mistakes, and the lap times weren’t there. But I bounced back in the second run by clocking the fastest time in the CrossCar category, and followed that up by setting the best time again in Q1. I knew I had the pace, and I knew that if I nailed the start, first place was within reach. And that’s exactly what happened, which gave my weekend the perfect launch pad.”
Indeed, across the six qualifying heats at Montalegre, the Estonian driver placed in the Top 5 on five occasions.
“I made a couple of errors in the semi-final of Race 1, but still managed to finish second. At that point, I told myself we were off to a strong start—and that feeling was confirmed with a third place in the final and a champagne shower to kick off the season. I couldn’t have asked for a better start.”
With another third-place finish in the final of Race 2 on Sunday, Juga left Montalegre with the second-highest points tally of the weekend – just behind Lindeqvist.
“We had some good discussions with Alex over the weekend. We haven’t really had a chance to compete against each other in RallyX, but he has already shown how fast he is. He was strong in the Swedish championship last year and from what we saw at Montalegre we’ll definitely have to keep an eye on him this season.”
While the LifeLive TN11 chassis stood out last year with its series of fastest laps, it still needed refinement in terms of performance off the line. That’s something Pace Motorsport has been focusing on heavily during the off-season.
“I think we’ve clearly made progress with the starts, but there’s still room for improvement. We all know how critical this phase is in RallyX – if you mess up your start, everything gets complicated. But we’ll keep working on it. Having said that, I have to say that I’m really happy driving the TN11. The speed on track is impressive. The car is incredibly agile and ultra-responsive – I really enjoy it.”
Now all eyes are on Valkenswaard, where Martin Juga will be looking to build on the momentum of his strong showing in Portugal.
“The podium is always the goal, of course, but the most important thing for me is to be consistent every time I’m on the track. It’s all about the long game – scoring big points in every race. You can’t predict anything in this series. The moment you start planning everything in RallyX, everything can go sideways. So for me the only priority is to push hard and see how far we can go.”