Saturday in Jamara – Part 1

06. October 2012Jarama - In the morning the temperature was at 10 C° at the Circuito del Jamara, which is at 700 meters above sea level. At the first free practice at the 10th race of the FIA European Truckracing Championship the 29 drivers were not really impressed by these temperatures. By the time the engines were warm, the sun in the cloudless sky had dried the last wet spots on the race track. Antonio Albacete (MAN) had the best time on his “home race track”.
In the second free practice all the drivers improved – some even significantly – such as the title holder Jochen Hahn. The German MAN driver even duped his rivals. In the end he was 2 seconds faster than the runner-up, the Swiss MKR-Renault driver Markus Bösiger. However, all this was just skirmish. In the timed practice everyone had to put their cards on the table. It all started with a first big incident: Right on the long straight the tank of David Vrsecky’s (Czech) Buggyra-Freightliner started to leak. Hence, the race track was covered in Diesel. Bösiger had been right behind Vrsecky and started to slide over the track. Afterward, the Swiss had to drive several more laps to get rid of the Diesel sticking on his wheels and placed 5th in the end, ending up in the top ten for the Super Pole. Ahead of the Swiss were Hahn, the German Markus Oestreich (Renault), Albacete and the Czech Adam Lacko (Renault). The list of the drivers in the top ten was completed by Norbert Kiss (HUN) in a MAN, the Frenchman Anthony Janiec (Renault) ahead of the three MAN drivers Javier Mariezcurrena (ESP), René Reinert (GER) and Dominique Lacheze (FRA).
During the Super Pole even the best drivers could not push their luck anymore. Hahn drove the best time and a little bit later Oestreich and Bösiger raced to the 2nd and 3rd starting position and therefore dislodged Albacete. The remaining top ten places were won by Lacko, Lacheze, Kiss, Janiec, Reinert and Mariezcurrena.

Impressions: