Testing Days in Nogaro
15. March 2007Nogaro - For the second time now, almost all the top teams of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship meet at the Southern France town of Nogaro shortly before the start of the season to do extensive tests. Only the Buggyra Freightliners are missing. But the Czech team around Markus Bösiger and David Vrsecky refrained from undertaking the rather arduous journey of about 1,300 miles to the Gascogne. Instead they chose to do their tests on the circuit of Most which is only 60 miles away from where the company, Roudnice, is located. This means that Mercedes Benz pilot Jochen Hahn is faced with an apparently overpowering MAN armada; however, the man from Altensteig cuts a fine figure with lap times that are, by now, already better than the fastest times of last year’s timed practice. But as Jochen Hahn said - with kind regards to his friend Mario - “everything is only a bluff, anyway”.
But actually, it’s not about bluffing, but hard work. It’s not without good reason that the MAN service team is as well staffed as ever before. Up till now, the new Common Rail racing engine ran only on the test stand and in Nogaro it became once more clearly evident that there is no substitute for really fast driving on the track. But this takes time and there is hardly enough time left, because in just a bit over two weeks it’s getting down to business when the new season will be opened in Barcelona. So it wouldn’t be astonishing when in Barcelona, at the beginning, instead of the pilots with the new engines, Antonio Albacete, Gerd Körber and Chris Levett, those MAN drivers on trucks with the sophisticated last year’s engines, such as Egon Allgäuer and Jean-Philippe Belloc, would be in the lead. Especially the Frenchman Belloc mightily impressed the observers with the times he achieved in Nogaro.
Of the pilots with the new engines, the individual driver does not rank behind so much, but as a whole the MAN crew does not seem to be totally satisfied.
Jochen Hahn doesn’t take this matter that seriously. He assumes that his opponents will very soon come to grips with the one or two minor problems that might arise. First of all, he is busy with optimising the set-up of his new truck; regarding the engine and gear he relies chiefly on the experts from Mercedes Benz. They stay with the reliable material with which they were so highly successful towards the end of last season, especially at the final in Le Mans.
Apart from that, there will be more tests on Friday all through the day and the “reckoning” won’t be before the end of this day.
In Nogaro FIA Technical Manager Fabien Calvet presented a drivers list - albeit provisionally - stating 23 pilots, with, in fact, the Hahn truck as the only promising Mercedes. Two of the private drivers have Mercedes trucks as well - but not exactly state-of-the-art vehicles - so that it can hardly be expected that they will get any points.
Surprises are not on this list, except that one or other big name is not on it. But instead another big shot returns to truck racing, the European Champion of the year 2004, Stuart Oliver. The Englishman took over Alain Buffa’s equipment, and now that apparently the leasing contract with MAN about engine and power train is signed and sealed, the way for the comeback of the ex-champion is clear.
As announced already in our short preview of March 12, a lot is going on at the circuit of Nogaro. The new pits and press rooms are not yet ready - the mechanics and craftsmen are still in command - however, by what can be seen and by what President André Divies tells, great things can be expected. Everything is constructed on a big scale, and the facilities they had so far and the ones that will be available in future are worlds apart. At the press centre alone there will be equipment for about 100 people, and the part of the centre facing the track will be totally glazed, thus allowing a full view over almost the whole circuit. The pits will have the same high standard as the ones of the F1 circuits. And the pit lane, too, is a big improvement and has a totally different ambience. Dominating everything is the high-rise RaceTower from where the race director will be able to survey all the races in future.
