Sunday in Barcelona

11. May 2008Barcelona - Until midnight it was pouring with rain, and some of the less robust team tents could not withstand the eight-hour steady rain and collapsed under the deluge of water. In the morning the sun was even shining now and then through a dense cloud cover. But when the Qualy race started, it promptly began to rain again, however, the rain was quite harmless compared to yesterday. Egon Allgäuer had other things to worry about. When his MAN collided with the wall during yesterday’s Championship race, it was damaged so heavily that the team was preparing to leave ahead of schedule. Moreover, the Austrian had hit his head so hard that he possibly wouldn’t have been fit enough for the races.
At the warm-up the usual „suspects“ – the two MAN pilots Antonio Albacete and Jochen Hahn as well as the two Buggyra drivers David Vrsecky and Markus Bösiger – were again leading. In the timed practice Vrsecky snatched away the pole position from local hero Albacete in the penultimate lap. Bösiger was third on the grid. The lap times of the top trio lay within a mere 25 hundredth. On fourth was Jean-Philipp Belloc (MAN), followed by Hahn, yesterday’s surprise winner, Frankie Vojtisek (Renault), and Dominique Lacheze (MAN) on 6th and 7th, respectively.
The rain at the Qualy race caused only some minor skiddings without any consequences. Vrsecky took the lead right from the beginning, ahead of Albacete and Bösiger. For 6 laps the Swiss was glued to the rear bumper of Albacete’s truck. But in the hairpin “La Caixa”, driving on the inner track, he started another attack. On the outer track was a trailing Spaniard. Albacete was forced to slow down and Bösiger sped past. The leading quartet was completed by Belloc. At the start Hahn fell back behind Vojtisek, followed by Stuart Oliver (MAN) and Markus Altenstrasser (Renault). In the third lap Vojtisek made some minor mistake and Hahn and Oliver took their chance to pass him. Behind Altenstrasser on 8th, Lacheze and Javier Mariezcurrena were the last ones in the points.
The final Championship race became the victory parade for Buggyra. Vrsecky and Bösiger held the lead from start to finish, claiming an unchallenged double win. At first Albacete fell back behind Belloc and Hahn, but, cheered by his compatriots, the Spaniard started another attack and forced his way past the German and the French to take third place on the podium. Behind Belloc, Hahn, and Vojtisek the pilots Lacheze, Altenstrasser, Mariezcurrena and Oliver gained the further places for the points.
The team ranking was won by Buggyra (Bösiger and Vrsecky), followed by Team Koller-Schwemmer (Hahn and Belloc), and Frankie Truckracing Team (Vojtisek and Altenstrasser).
The final ranking is led by Vrsecky with 49 points, followed by Bösiger (40), Belloc (32), Vojtisek (31), Albacete (29), Oliver (27) and Hahn (22).
The first racing weekend of the truck racing season was significantly affected by the disastrous weather conditions at the Circuit de Catalunya. That is why the first Championship race brought about a totally unexpected outcome which certainly does not reflect the true power of strength. But the most negative effect of Saturday’s rain was the number of spectators, but all the same, there were a total number of almost 20,000 fans at the circuit.