Sunday in Misano

23. September 2007Misano - Again there was bright sunshine, with only a smattering of clouds in the blue sky. The temperatures were again above 23 °C (77 °F) and the tarmac was about 35 °C (95 °F). A crowd exceeding 27,000 strolled about during the breaks and admired the two new attractions in the truck business, the MAN TGX V8, and its counterpart, the Mercedes Benz SilverTec F1 V8. In the course of a big event 50 SilverTrucks, sold to customers from Italy, were handed over to their new owners, and they got the chance to test their new vehicles on the track. But quite a bit faster were the race trucks. David Vrsecky (Buggyra Freightliner) set the fastest lap in the timed practice (2:00.666). Antonio Albacete (MAN) and Markus Bösiger (Buggyra Freightliner) were more than 4 tenths behind. Jochen Hahn (Mercedes Benz) was again on 4th.
But in the Qualy race Vrsecky could not benefit from his top times, right at the start he lost his pole to Albacete. Bösiger remained on third. Hahn’s truck skidded a bit and he was passed by the three MAN pilots, Gerd Körber, Jean-Phillip Belloc, and Chris Levett. The latter he could pass again after some time, but found Belloc a hard nut to crack. While the battle between the Swabian and the Frenchman continued, Körber managed to make some ground and finished comfortably on fourth. Albacete, too, succeeded in putting more and more distance between himself and his chasers. Although Bösiger drove fastest lap with 2:01.799 minutes, Albacete’s win was never in jeopardy.
In the Cup race very soon things went haywire. With a super-start Bösiger took the lead, ahead of Albacete and Körber who left Vrsecky behind. Glued to each others bumpers the leading quartet did lap after lap, being aware that, anytime, there could be an attack from behind. After the first half of the race Körber and Vrsecky managed to pass Albacete. Now everybody thought that Bösiger would be the winner and could even further exceed his advantage, but then, 3 laps before the end of the race, Körber started a fierce attack in the Quercia to take the lead. But in the course of this, the yellow MAN crashed fully into the blue Freightliner. Bösiger’s truck turned sideways and almost came to a halt. And all the pilots driving behind had to brake hard, too, to prevent even more damage. Now Vrsecky was in the lead, followed by Albacete and Hahn, and in this order the trio took the chequered flag. With their badly damaged trucks Bösiger and Körber tried to hold to their fourth and sixth position respectively, with Belloc lying in between. But, of course, the Frenchman didn’t care about the condition of the Freightliner, he attacked and went past. But in the second last bend Bösiger hit back and managed to cross the finish line on fourth. Behind Körber, the pilots Egon Allgäuer (MAN), Levett, Markus Altenstrasser (Renault), and Stuart Oliver (MAN) completed the top ten.
After the victory ceremony there were hot discussions with the stewards. Several teams raised protests and there were objections on the part of the stewards. Drivers and team bosses were summoned, and after a lengthy discussion Bösiger got a 1-second penalty for attacking Belloc. This meant that the Swiss fell back on 5th behind the Frenchman.
Nevertheless, the Freightliner pilot is still leading the overall standing with 384 points, ahead of Albacete (351), Vrsecky (316), Hahn (237) and Körber (228).
Same as yesterday, the team ranking was won by Team Buggyra, followed by Team Hahn and Team Allgäuer.