"WATCH OUT now, there's a slight right turn," Martin tells me as we race 270 kilometers per hour in a McLaren 720S GT3 on the legendary Bathurst track in Australia.

"When you pass the 100 mark, brake, shift down to the third gear, and go slightly to the right. Step on the gas pedal because there's an uphill climb. If you lose power, it's over. The track narrows, there is a series of curves, you have to hold the line and be careful ...," he continues with the instructions, but - in vain.

I braked too late, shifted into the wrong gear, missed a curve, and ended up crashing into the wall. I just crashed a 600,000 euro McLaren. They tell me to get to the pit, and the race in Bathurst is over for me.

Fortunately, we are not in faraway Australia, but in a 30,000 euro simulator in the basement of Martin Kodric's family home in Samobor. On this track, where the author of the text crashed his car, and which is one of the hardest and most famous tracks in the world, Martin achieved an incredible victory in the GT race at the beginning of the month.

The name Martin Kodric does not mean much to the general public and, and if they ran into him on the street, most would have no idea that they just passed by the best driver in the history of Croatian motorsport.

Martin Kodric has been a factory driver for McLaren for two years, and he's killing it in GT races. He is one of only ten drivers on the British supercar manufacturer's payroll, and he has only recently come into the focus of the Croatian public after beating the competition in his category at the Bathurst race.

He ended up on the track because of his brother

Martin's story is a classic one when it comes to top motorsports. Thanks to his family's good financial background, he started karting quite early, but he ended up there quite by accident.

"The whole family has always been involved in extreme sports. My brother, who is 12 years older than me, rode motocross and skied. Then he went to Grobnik for the Skoda Fabia Cup at the age of 17 or 18. I was a kid at the time and occasionally went racing with him. I loved it, I became interested in the sport, and one day they put me in the kart. That was it," Kodric recalls with a smile.

He takes us through his basement, which he turned into a little paradise in his family house, and which will soon become too small for all the titles Kodric has won over his career. All his racing suits he has been collecting since he was a go-kart driver are hanging on the wall. A small go-kart body is placed against the wall, and it looks ridiculous compared to what Martin drives now.

An entire wall is covered with trophies that his brother and, for the most part, he himself won on the tracks. Nurburgring, Trofeo Margutti, Bathurst... It's hard to count them all.

He drove in Croatia for a short time, but due to the weak domestic scene, he soon moved to Slovenia and Italy. In 2010, he won the regional Sportstil Championship and a place in the World Championship.

"There were 120 drivers there, and I was really young and had no expectations. However, I was in fourth place during the qualifying sessions, and in the race, I had the chance of winning up until the last lap. I saw an opportunity, but I made a mistake and ended up finishing fifth. It was an impressive result because no one who came to the World Cup from Sportstil had ever placed better than 32nd place," says Martin.

Fifth place was his worst result

In 2012, he won the prestigious Trofeo Andrea Margutti, the best karting cup in the world. He ended up third at the European Championship and the World Championship and had several victories in the WSK as well.

"I think that fifth place was my worst result at the time," says Martin.

However, he never went to Formula One competitions.

"There are several reasons, but the most important one is that I'm just too big. I am a little over 180 cm tall, and I weigh 87 kilograms. There are also taller drivers than me, like Alexander Albon, but he weighs 20 kilograms less. I just can't fit in a formula 1 car, ha, ha," Martin explains and adds:

"Another important reason is that I'm from Croatia, and Formula 1 does not have many viewers here. That means that the teams are immediately not interested in me because I will not be good for marketing," says Kodric.

Formula 1 is not all that

Although he could not fit in the Formula 3 car, a completely new world opened up for Martin at the Nurburgring race. His excellent results were noticed by Lamborghini, and they invited him for testing and then offered him a factory driver position in GT racing. As of March last year, he is one of ten drivers of the great McLaren. What does that mean? It's like being a member of a football club. He is paid very well for what he does and does not depend on sponsors or parents.

As he himself stated, the only motorsport that is well-known in Croatia is Formula 1, and even that has not been as popular in recent years. We asked him if he cared that he was practically unknown in his country.

"Honestly, it used to bother me before. I open the newspaper and see articles about the fifth football league and nothing about any of my results. I don't think I'm more important than others, but I know how hard I worked to win a race. But then I saw how many people in the world follow my sport and know about my results, especially since I started driving for McLaren and achieved the best results in this region," said Martin.

Then, Bathurst happened. For those who may not follow motorsports in such detail, Mount Panorama Circuit is one of the most legendary tracks in the world, and one of the three largest tracks in GT racing. Martin drove in Bathurst in February for the 59Racing team that bought McLaren cars. They placed eighth in the 12-hour race, and the race was also pointed for the individual competition. Three drivers took turns in each car. In addition to the overall ranking, the top 20 laps of each driver were pointed in the individual competition.

Kodrić was beyond any doubt the best in the "silver" category. The runner-up was two laps behind him. In the overall individual ranking, he won an incredible second place, following the driver from the "platinum" category and ahead of the "gold" driver.

He wants to win Le Mans

What's next? The crown of a GT career of every driver is the 24 Hours race of Le Mans. Croatia last had a driver in that race back in 1938, so we were interested in whether Martin's goal was to participate in that legendary race.

"No. My goal is not to participate in the race, my goal is to win. I will definitely drive at Le Mans if everything goes well. I'm just not sure when. Soon, the so-called hypercars will be driven at Le mans, and McLaren hasn't yet started developing those cars. All other factories have already started, and we will start in two or three years. My ultimate goal is to be in one of those cars, and then only the sky's the limit. I am only 22 years old, and I can drive until I am forty. There's serious money involved in those races, and the drivers earn more than half of the Formula 1 grid," reveals Kodric.

The English have a good term for guys like Martin. "Remember the name." Croatia has a great talent in a sport in which the competition is brutal. He has long outgrown the status of "promising", and it is not impossible that an offer from Porsche or Ferrari will soon come to him. He is that good, they say.

Not his parents, but Lamborghini and McLaren.

And his results.