Sunday on the Ring

23. July 2006Nürburgring - A total of 185,000 people were not discouraged by Saturday’s thunderstorms and enjoyed watching more exciting races. The timed practice was again won by Markus Oestreich, 2nd position gained Euroline team mate Niko Pulic. After the horrific crash during the “rain cup race” nobody knew for sure whether the Croatian Mercedes Benz would be able to start today. On 3rd position was Gerd Körber on his Freightliner, and on 4th position was Jochen Hahn, yet another Mercedes pilot, followed by Markus Bösiger, the first of the MAN pilots.
But during the races the cards were dealt out in a completely different way. At the start of the Qualification race (group 1) pole setter Oestreich won the fight against Körber, but when entering the start/finish straight, due to a little mistake he dropped back not only one position, but fell back behind Markus Bösiger, too, on 3rd position. For Körber the victory seemed to be a sure thing now, but during the last laps Bösiger put a lot of pressure on the German, but Körber, the old hand at truck racing, fought off all the attacks and won his first race of this year’s Truck Grand Prix. And also in the Qualifying race of group 2 a Buggyra Freightliner took 1st position. Right from the start David Vrsecky – starting from second row – took the lead. Pole setter Pulic had to content with 2nd position, but later on he was overhauled by Albacete and Hahn, too.
The Cup race was one of the most eventful races of recent years. Markus Bösiger, starting from 2nd row, overtook pole setter Körber already in the first lap when he braked too hard and then – by bending the rules a bit – scorched through the emergency exit of the chicane. When the trucks entered the Mercedes Arena for the second time, the Swiss got off the track
a bit and – cheered by his enthusiastic fans – the German took the lead again and held this position right to the finish. But behind Körber the positions changed continuously. By watching this it was difficult from time to time to keep track. Besides the man from Switzerland the chasing pack consisting of Albacete, Vrsecky, Altenstrasser as well as the three Mercedes pilots Oestreich, Pulic and Hahn was fighting for positions. And when there were approx. five more laps to go, the Spaniard had to “lay down his arms”. Vrsecky was on 2nd position and had to fight off the ferocious attacks of Markus Oestreich. Bösiger was on 4th position. Hahn tried again and again to overhaul Pulic but to no avail. In the last round, during a lapping manoeuvre, the German was heavily hampered. Altenstrasser took his chance and passed the Mercedes pilot.
Now we had to wait a long time for the podium. Besides the two Buggyra pilots, Markus Oestreich (who finished 3rd) had gone to the podium. They congratulated each other and were standing around waiting for the ceremony to proceed. Then Rüdiger Herzog, who is responsible for truck racing at Mercedes Benz, was taken aside by Arno Derichs. Next Rüdiger Herzog talked to Oese and both men walked away without saying anything. And suddenly Egon Allgäuer approached with his team, because it had been decided that his pilot, Markus Altenstrasser, was third. All the others, who crossed the finish line ahead of Altenstrasser, got time penalties or were disqualified because of overspeeding and short cuts through the chicane, respectively.
Finally, Gerd Körber became first International Truck Master Germany.