Official Website
| Name: |
| Norbi Kiss |
| Date of Birth: |
02 May 1985 |
| Racing Experience: |
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Renault Clio Cup Seat Leon SuperCup Porsche SuperCup Suzuki Swift Cup Formula Renault 2.0 |
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Norbi Who?
Norbi Kiss was born on May 2nd 1985 in a Hungarian city of Szombathely and even though he had a convetionally happy childhood he didn't have the opportunity to race cars in his younger years. Since karting was too expensive Norbi opted for the next best thing - sim racing. When he was 20 years old he had already built up a reputation for himself in the sim racing circles. He was the multiple champion of the Hungarian Live for Speed League, he won the 6 hour endurance race of SST Endurance and the Hungarian NASCAR Racers League. In 2005 he became the Sim-Challange.com world champion.
Next thing to happen is a real life motorsport Cinderella story. Róbert Szabolcs, the owner of Proex Motorspor, which was at the time participating in the MNASZ Hungarian Championship, took part in the Hungarian LFS League during the off-season where he noticed Norbi was dealing out punishment to any and all takers. In a true light bulb moment, he offered Norbi a chance to test drive the team's Opel Astra Classic on Euro-ring in 2005. Let's try to keep in mind that Norbi didn't even have a driver's license at the time, and on his first ever real life track test he beat the team track record.
Norbi joined the 2005. MNASZ Hungarian Championship season more than half-way through and his goals at the time were to continue learning and try to finish races, but things turned out a little more fableous. Proex Motorsport entered Norbi (and the car built for his test) into the Mobil1 Opel Astra Classic Cup held at Kiskunlacháza. On the track – which was built on an old airport – the racers competed in a hillclimb race system. The whole event consisted of 4 rounds held over 2 days (Saturday & Sunday), after each day's rounds the times were added and the one with the quickest overall times would be the winner. Norbi finished on podium both on Saturday and Sunday. His first round on Saturday he came in 4th after Géza Bíró, Attila Veégh and János Vida on the wet tarmac. In the second round of the day he was the absolute best. At the end of the first day he was 3rd overall, behind Bíró and Veégh, with only 0.04 sec gap to the 2nd place. On Sunday the tarmac dried out and Bíró won both rounds with Norbi finishing 2nd and 3rd respectivley in the two rounds, beating out Péter Pantl and a later champion László Farkas. Norbi finished the weekend in 2nd place overall which was more than anyone expected.
Two weeks later and the next event was to be held at Parádsasvár, the most famous hillclimb race of the season, where Proex Motorsport entered Norbi again. The race system was same as 2 weeks before in Kiskunlacháza so Norbi continued his learning curve more comfortably. On Saturday Zoltán Molnár finished 1st in front of Norbi, who's goal was to reach 2nd overall again. Lady luck turned out to be on Norbi's side because Molnár had a tire puncture in the second round of the day and Proex Motorsport & Norbi would claim the win with Géza Bíró and Péter Pantl finishing 2nd and 3rd respectivley. On sunday Bíró met with a serious accident, while Molnár drove a safety round after his puncture the day before. This all resulted with Norbi driving without any serious threats which enabled him to have a 3 whole seconds better time than on Saturday.
Hungaroring debut
After Parádsasvár the question wasn't whether or not Norbi Kiss was the new Hungarian motorsport talent, but how will he handle himself on a dedicated race track with other cars around him. Norbi outqualified everybody with only 2 days of practice on the track and started the race from pole in front of László Farkas and Béla Szamosváry. The first round on Saturday wasn't very lucky for Norbi who didn't have the best of starts and subsequently got involved in an accident and suffered a tire puncture which forced him to make a pitstop. The race now became a testing session for Norbi who's aim now was to get the fastest lap, but his race finished 3 laps before the end.
On Sunday Norbi was 3rd after the start, behind Zoltán Molnár and László Farkas, but he had a contact with Viktor Szőke and fell back to 5th position. On lap 8. Norbi passed Béla Szamosvári for 4th position in which he finally finished with quite a bit of dissatisfaction. Despite the rocky Hungaroring start, the dedicated race track experience paid off in the season ending of the II. Csuka Gabona Cup where Norbi could finally meet success on a dedicated race track. On Saturday Béla Szamosvári set a new track record of 2:21.987 with no one except Norbi even coming close to it. With Szamosvári on pole Norbi started the race in 2nd position, but it didn’t take him long to overtake and claim the 1st position and the race win with more than 6 seconds advantage. On Sunday the rain arrived to complicate things. The race was driven on a half-dry half-wet track where László Farkas would be in 1st position after the start, in front of Norbi who would soon take the lead again and take the chequered flag with an over 18 seconds gap.
Since he didn’t participate in the first third of the season, the championship title couldn’t be reached, but after his debut no one could manage to get more points than the young talent from Szombathely. Furthermore, he was the only one to get 4 wins in the 2005. season and with 122 points was the last one over the magical 100 point mark which got him 5th position overall in the championship. To acknowledge his excellence Norbi was given the “2005 Rookie of the Year” award by the MNASZ Hungarian Federation of Auto Sports.
At the end of 2005 it seemed that Norbi would continue his career in the biggest class in Hungary at the time, the Shell V-Power Racing Renault Clio Cup. The question was what kind of sacrifices would Proex Motorsport make for the new talent with no financial background. Róbert Szabolcs, the owner of Proex Motorsport decided to retire and let Norbi take his place and his Renault Clio – a decision he wouldn’t regret.
Even though the decision to enter Norbi into the Clio Cup was made pretty quickly, the winter and spring testing didn’t go as well. For the 4th season of this series the cars got new transmissions and semi-slick tires which only arrived for the last practice session before the first race. Meanwhile, the Szombathely Comet practiced on slick tires, he also drove the Opel Astra Classic and did a lot of kilometers in the Suzuki Swift Cup car at the invitation of Zengő Motorsport. Norbi practiced in a lot of cars, all of which were not the car he would drive in the actual races, but finally the Clio was complete with new tires and completely ready for the last practice session.
After his very impressive debut in the Opel Astra Classic Norbi was unaware of the class of competition that he would meet in 2006. His biggest opponent would be the 2 time champion of the series: Gábor Wéber – a man who needed to be passed if you wanted to win a race. We must also mention György Makai because he was the only to come even close when Wéber was in the field.
A strong start in Hungaroring
On Thursday practice, before the VI. Heidelberg Cup opener, Proex Motorsport car had a very bizarre accident. Screws that anchor the front wheel to the axle suddenly broke and the wheel came flying off the car. Fortunately, the spectacular accident didn’t result with any lasting damage to the car, so Norbi continued Friday’s practice. In qualification he reached 2nd position, later saying that he wanted to do another run on new tires but couldn’t due to an oil leak from his transmission. Pole position went to Gábor Wéber, but due to a bad start he lost the fight for 1st place before the chicane to Norbi. Wéber tried to take the position back in the left-right combination turn, but he hit his running gear and couldn’t match Norbi’s pace. Norbi lead from start to finish and won his first race in Shell V-Power Renault Clio Cup.
Saturday’s success was followed by an improvement in qualification and Proex Motorsport would start Sunday’s race from pole position. The race started behind the safety car due to a previous accident, this turned out to be in Norbi’s advantage as Wéber couldn’t attack before first turn and later experienced tehnical difficulties. This guaranteed Norbi his second win in a pretty unexciting race.
Winning at Orfű
Second round of the championship was held between Orfű and Magyarhertelend. This location was a substitute for the famous Pécs hill climb race which couldn’t hold the event. Norbi considered this new track to be an advantage for him because no one else had any experience on it either, after seeing the track map everyone was worried about several dangerous points on the track.
On Saturday’s practice Norbi drove the 2nd time of the day behind Wéber’s 2:10.96. Events turned in Norbi’s favor once again and he finished in front of Wéber, he also won the rest of the events that weekend, including Saturday’s and Sunday’s races. On Saturday Norbi’s advantage was 1.3 sec. ahead of Wéber who arrived to the race with a new Clio. Advantage grew to 3 seconds by the end of Sunday. The podium was Norbert Kiss – Szabolcs Gál – Zoltán Bárkovics, but due to lack of fortune for the podium guys, the 2006 champion title would be decided between Norbi Kiss and Gábor Wéber. The dynamic duo was in a league of their own.
After the hill climb in Orfű the teams headed back to Hungaroring where the Material Cup was about to begin in June. Due to changing weather conditions, team Proex couldn’t make a satisfactory race setup but still managed to make the car fast in qualification trim. Norbi got the pole position with Wéber again just behind him. In the race Wéber continually attacked for first position, which later in the race resulted by two contacts. Norbi won the battle – partly due to a Safety Car period – and got his 5th race win in the Clio Cup. During the afternoon team Proex found the right setup for the race and the first row was again Kiss – Wéber. The race however, didn’t finish in such a predictable manner – Norbi had a good start and built up a comfortable lead by the end of the first lap, when Wéber had a crash with Szabolcs Gál and fell back to the end of the grid. The 2nd placed driver of the championship, Wéber clawed his way back to 8th position but the ex-champion lost valuable points to the now probable winner of the 2006 season.
Sudden excitement in Parádsasvár
If the two fastest drivers of the Shell V-Power Renault Clio Cup were to go head-to-head anywhere – this would be the ideal place. A place where Norbi got his first win and a place that got Wéber the title “Clio King of the Road 24”. The weekend was full of unwanted surprises on both sides, but biggest adversity was over at Proex Motorsport camp. The twice champion of the Clip Cup and “Clio King of the Road 24” finished the first practice in front of Norbi, who got held up by György Deli, the Suzuki Swift Cup’s slowest driver. There were no second runs in practice because of the traffic made by other car classes, so the young talent had to prove he’s faster in the next round – which is exactly what he did. The results of the last practice before the first race showed that Norbi was indeed faster than Wéber. There was a possibility of a big battle in the evening, but Szabolcs Gál ran a faster time than Norbi, so Norbi fell to 3rd position of that day with 1.21 seconds gap to 1st. In the afternoon Norbi ran the fastest time of the weekend, but it was still not enough to beat Wéber overall on Saturday.
What couldn’t be seen on the time sheets was that Norbi made a driving error during the second run and had a contact with the barrier, causing damage to the running gear of his car which couldn’t be repaired on the spot. . Gergely Papp, László Kalmár and Norbi Kiss went to Eger, where the car could be fixed over night. On Sunday however, car proved to be not in a perfect condition, Norbi ran a 7 seconds slower time than the day before. His car was then inspected by Gyula Monori, the chief mechanic of Zengő Motorsport. Mechanics of Proex and Zengő Motorsport worked together to bring the car back to life. When it was finally done, Norbi’s car was the only one that could run a sub 3 minute dream time on this track. With a time of 2:59.95 he was the fastest on Sunday. Due to a later accident in the Suzuki Swift Cup the second race of the day was canceled and the overall result just consisted of the first race. Norbi won the day and the weekend, the officials decided that full points would be given for the weekend and the point difference between the young talent and the ex-champion remained stagnant for the first time.
Update coming soon!
