Friday, 29.03.2024 | Deutsch | English
Friday at the Ring

Friday at the Ring

23. July 2010Nürburgring - A brilliant blue sky in the morning, heavy rain in the afternoon – that’s what people familiar with the weather conditions in the Eifel region call ‘typical Nürburgring weather’. But that did not dampen the spirit of the truck racers and the fans. Particularly the Englishman Chris Levett was all smiles. It seemed that the MAN pilot had contained himself a bit in the free practice, because in the timed practice he was suddenly more than 2 seconds faster. The two MKR Renault pilots Markus Oestreich (GER) and Markus Bösiger (SUI) who had been dominating at first could not improve their lap times towards the end. Truck race novice Hendrik Vieth’s first performance in the Mercedes Truck of the Mercedes Benz Trucks Works Team was really great. The German touring car pilot didn’t make it into the SuperPole, but in his ‘new’ RaceTruck he outpaced a good many long-serving truck racers. Fellow German Uwe Nittel is again among the top ten. The Buggyra pilot who is again registered as a race-by-race pilot, turns out to become the rising star of the season. At the start of the SuperPole you would think that the leading pilots in the championship now showed Levett who calls the tune, but already in the first quick lap the Brit clocked 1:55.422 m, a time his opponents were unable to beat. Oestreich posted second fastest time, the Spaniard Antonio Albacete (MAN) qualified 3rd on the grid alongside Bösiger. The two Czechs, David Vrsecky (Buggyra) and Adam Lacko (MAN), shared third row on the grid, ahead of the Russian Alex Lvov (MAN), Uwe Nittel, and Renault pilot Anthony Janiec. Tough luck for local hero Jochen Hahn – he was relegated to 10th for overspeeding.
The timed practice for the Mittelrhein Cup started accompanied by light rain, and those who had not come to grips with the conditions right at the beginning, had no real chance anymore. Levett, who competes in both events, claimed again pole position, although he was 8 seconds slower than during his previous ‘parforce run’. Second position fell to his arch-rival Stuart Oliver. For both MAN pilots the points gained here count towards the British Championship. Behind them was the German Phalanx – Hans-Joachim Stuck (MAN), Gerd Körber (Iveco), and Heinz-Werner Lenz (Mercedes Benz). The trio saw the event as a sort of ‘preliminary canter’ to tomorrow’s challenge round against Timo Scheider.
What came next was a veritable deluge and the rest of the programme was ‘rained off’ in the truest sense of the word. In the meantime representatives of the FIA teams, the TRO (Truck Racing Organisation), and of the organizer of the truck racing event in Smolensk were assembled in order to discuss the matter of the journey to Russia.