🇨🇿 Erik Cais

Rallying was the second career. Cais, born in Zlín in 1999 to a father who raced bicycles, was a World Cup-level downhill mountain biker until injury ended it, and only started rallying in 2018.

The ascent after that was quick enough to be noticed: an Opel Adam Cup season, a Peugeot in the Czech championship, then the European series and a Ford Fiesta Rally2 inside two years. The FIA's Central European zone named him its first Talent of the Year in 2019, an award handed over by Jean Todt, and he was runner-up in ERC3 the same season. A first full world championship campaign came in 2022 at twenty-two, producing consecutive WRC2 podiums and a category win on the Monte Carlo Rally.

The event he is asked about most is the one he lost. In 2021 he led Barum Czech Rally Zlín — his home round — into the final stage before a heavy accident ended it. He has described the memory as both stuck with him and a good one, on the grounds that leading at all felt the way it did.

He switched from Ford to Škoda power in 2023 with Slovak co-driver Igor Bacigál, and now contests the European championship's sealed-surface rounds in a Hyundai i20 N Rally2, passing a hundred competitive starts in 2026.