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Sunday in Most

Sunday in Most

26. August 2007Most - Today it was almost as unbearably hot as on Saturday, nevertheless, early in the morning, there were long queues of cars at the access roads leading to the parking lots. But the crowd exceeding 70,000 – many of them coming from Germany and Austria – were compensated with exciting and spectacular races – not only in regard to the trucks. Already at the warm up Markus Bösiger, Antonio Albacete and David Vrsecky again set the standards. There was a difference of more than one second between the two Buggyra drivers and the MAN pilot, and the rest of the field. And also at the timed practice those three drivers continued their dominance. Already in the first lap Albacete marked absolute fastest time with an advantage of more than three tenths to Vrsecky and Bösiger. Fourth position on the grid achieved Jochen Hahn (Mercedes Benz), ahead of Gerd Körber and Jean-Philippe Belloc (both MAN).
At first everything went smoothly. Pole setter Albacete took the lead, with Bösiger and Vrsecky in tow. Same as yesterday, the Swiss tried everything to pass the Spaniard, but he never seemed to have a real chance. After the first half of the race the two Buggyra pilots started their attacks. Within a brief time span both overtook the red Cepsa-MAN, which naturally the battle-tried Spaniard would not accept. While Bösiger could make some ground, Vrsecky and Albacete clashed heavily in the 180 degrees turn. Hard to believe that both managed to cross the finish line with their severely battered trucks. Albacete’s truck was definitely the one more gravely battered. But in spite of two punctured rear tyres he succeeded to finish on third, ahead of Körber; and Vrsecky took the chequered flag only one second behind the winner Bösiger. On fifth was Belloc, followed by Ross Garrett (Renault), Egon Allgäuer (MAN) and Hahn. The Mercedes pilot didn’t have a good start, he fell back from the fourth position to the middle of the field, but eventually managed to fight his way back and finished on 8th. The race alone was very exciting, but it was outdone by the incidents that followed. Ross Garrett got a 10 seconds penalty for disregarding a flag, and protests were raised against the three leading pilots because of their inapposite driving. After a lengthy discussion it was announced that Bösiger, Vrsecky and Albacete would be excluded from the race.
The people affected at once entered an appeal, which of course could not be decided upon before the start of the Cup race. New results were announced with Körber leading the list ahead of Belloc and Allgäuer, but this list will only be provisional. So the start for the Cup race was carried out as if there had not been a protest with a consequential disqualification.
The start was rather unspectacular. To the delight of the Czech audience Bösiger took the lead ahead of Vrsecky and Albacete. Körber and Belloc fought a fierce battle for fourth position. But the German was in control of the situation all the time. Behind him, however, the situation was not so cut-and-dried. It seemed that Hahn was always a little bit faster than Allgäuer, but whatever the Mercedes pilot tried, he did not succeed to pass the Austrian. The stewards decided that the two opponents overshot the mark a bit and imposed a drive-through penalty for both. Hahn got the same penalty a second time because he supposedly clipped a corner marker. Both pilots fell back considerably. And then, during the last two laps things started happening very fast. Chris Levett, who had been driving his Atkins MAN relatively steadily and unspectacularly on 8th position, was suddenly on sixth. In the penultimate lap at the steering system of Vrsecky’s truck a tube came loose and the Buggyra came to a standstill on the grass. Now Levett was on fifth. And in the second last bend Belloc simply seemed to have braked too late and fully hit Körber’s MAN. This meant the seventh place for Körber, whereas Belloc fell back on fifth behind Garrett. And then Levett was on the podium together with Bösiger and Albacete.
Bösiger is still clearly leading the drivers ranking with 302 points, ahead of Albacete (268) and Vrsecky (228). All these standings, however, will be only provisional until a final decision is made in regard to the objection.
The team ranking was won today by Team Frankie ahead of Buggyra and Team Allgäuer. The Austrian team, though, will not send a member to the victory ceremony until it is decided upon which criteria will be applied for the victory ceremony.