Saturday on the Ring

22. July 2006Nürburgring - On Saturday morning there was already a stifling heat and everybody was yearning for a refreshing rain shower. At about 1:00 o’clock the sky clouded over and there was a strong wind, but we could have done without the thunderstorm that followed and would rather have gone on sweating. Rivers of water flooded not only the track and the paddock, the camping sites were covered with mud in no time, tents collapsed and there were several power failures.
Before the thunderstorm, at the first Qualification race (group 1), there was something new, two Mercedes Benz trucks (with Markus Oestreich and Niko Pulic) building a “Euroline” (to quote Oese) in the first row of the grid. Directly behind them was another Mercedes pilot, Jochen Hahn. At the start Pulic took the lead, followed by Oestreich and Gerd Körber. Jochen Hahn lost his 3rd position to the Buggyra pilot right from the beginning. After some more rounds the man from Altensteig had to give in to the attacks of the MAN pilot Markus Bösiger and had to content with 5th position.
The leading pilots meanwhile did lap after lap in perfect harmony, but in the penultimate round Oestrich started to charge Pulic and eventually passed him. Gerd Körber seemed to have the same idea, but the man from Croatia offered tough resistance and could defend his 2nd position to the finish.
The first Qualification race of the second group was dominated by Antonio Albacete. In his red MAN he took the lead from the beginning and could defend his position to the end with a short but safe advantage to David Vrsecky. For a long time it looked as if Frankie Vojtisek’s 3rd position was unchallenged, but the Portuguese MAN pilot Jose Rodrigues was glued to the rear of the Czech Renault all the time and in the end managed to overhaul Vojtisek. Shortly before the end of the race, Heinz-Werner Lenz had to give up due to a technical failure of his Iveco, thus leaving 5th position to Hans-Joachim Stuck. The former F1 pilot participated in an Allgäuer MAN as a guest driver. But the honour of the Lenz family was “saved” by their son Sascha, who gained 6th position with his Mercedes do Brasil.
Before the start of the Cup race, however, the aforementioned rain began to fall. Nevertheless, they tried to start the race at the scheduled time but it was an absolute disaster. At the beginning of the Mercedes Arena, pole setter Oestreich just drove straight ahead. The others were a bit more careful and managed to get through the bend, but not without some damages. During the following rounds, especially before the T4, again and again some of the trucks took to the gravel. Then the rain was getting even worse and after only 3 laps the race was stopped. The wrecks were removed and then a fleet of the American trucks drove slowly over the circuit. Meanwhile the marshals tried to drain the numerous small “lakes” on the track. After a delay of one and a half hours the race went on. The trucks started in the order of the finish of the first part of the race, Körber on pole alongside Bösiger, and in the second row Pulic and Albacete. And those were the positions when this group of four went into the first bend. Pulic was meanwhile neck and neck with Körber and that’s how they came out of the corner. When they reached the vertex of the Mercedes Arena, the Freightliner bumped the Croatian Mercedes, Pulic’s truck did a 180 degrees turn on the wet surface; Frankie Vojtisek tried in vain to avoid the Croatian but hit the Mercedes, and Markus Altenstrasser who was close behind, crashed into the Renault, doing the Vojtisek truck in. Again the race had to be stopped. Then there was the third start of the Cup race. Albacete took the lead, followed by Körber and Bösiger. And while the 1st position of the Spaniard was never challenged, there was an exciting battle for the next positions. Jochen Hahn was quickly gaining 2nd position, but in the last lap could not defend his position against Bösiger and had to content with 3rd position. But as the results of the first and second part of the race were added up, the final result did not really reflect the actual result. The winner was Markus Bösiger, followed by Antonio Albacete and Gerd Körber. Hahn gained 4th position, next came Markus Altenstrasser and Hans-Joachim Stuck.