Long entry list for the FIA ETRC
05. May 2014Twenty “full-season” race trucks on the entry list for the 2014 FIA European Truck Racing Championship on the cutoff date — as many as there were last year. And to think that only a few weeks ago many had prophesied the near demise of the series! The largest contingent this year is from Germany. Champion Jochen Hahn spearheads a mini MAN armada consisting of René Reinert and truckrace amazons Steffi Halm and Ellen Lohr, Mercedes pilot André Kursim completing the quintet. And don’t forget Gerd Körber and his brand new Iveco, even if “Mr. Truckracing” has committed to only five races this year owing to professional commitments.
What’s surprising is the number of pilots from Portugal — we’ve got four, three of them named José (Rodrigues, Teodosio, and Souza). And then there’s Eduardo Rodrigues, father of José, who continues to drive an MAN, as he has all his life, while the three Josés will all take to the track in Renaults.
José Rodrigues, though, is the cynosure at the moment. The Portuguese has been a part of the truckrace circus since 2000 as an MAN driver, finishing as high as fifth one season. This year he will drive a Renault for the first time, for the newly formed Europart Racing Team 14. The primary sponsor has ordained that the truck made by MKR-boss Mario Kress will serve as a rolling test lab for truck components. José has partnered Teodosio, also in an ex-MKR truck, for the team championship.
There are eight registrations for the team championship, the favourites surely being defending champs Truck Sport Bernau and the other MAN duo Hahn/Reinert. Lutz Bernau’s partnership with triple-European champion Antonio Albacete (ESP) endures, and the second Bernau MAN will be driven by former champion Markus Bösiger from Switzerland. Both Bernau drivers are the hottest aspirants for the driver’s title next to Hahn — all three, after all, have what’s very likely the strongest engine in the field.
Still, you cannot underestimate the Freightliners from Buggyra. The bonneted trucks from the Czech Republic are getting on in years as far as their basic construction goes, but continual rejuvenation has ensured that they’re still extremely competitive — as they proved last season, when Buggyra’s perennial “senior” pilot David Vršecký finished ahead of the singularly favoured MAN trucks on more than one occasion. In the final classification the Czech finished ahead of the Renault trucks, which had been considered far stronger than his “old” Buggyra. Together with compatriot Adam Lacko he forms a duo that will definitely have a say in the determination of the team champions.
The circle of favourites naturally includes the Hungarian OXXO team. In the last couple of years Norbert Kiss has shown that, on a good day, he can beat anybody. His companion Benedek Major has demonstrated, too, that years of experience aren’t necessary to fight it out successfully at the front. There’s one distinction the young Hungarian isn’t going to have to give up in a hurry — that of being the youngest winner of a race in the ETRC, which Major won when he beat a bevy of battle-scarred veterans at Nogaro last year while he was still only 16.
The MAN Lion team of Steffi Halm and Javier Mariezcurrena can look forward to excellent prospects, even if they don’t count among the favourites. The two-time winner of the French national championship will focus her campaign on the FIA ETRC this year, while Mariezcurrena will share his seat with Belgian Jean-Pierre Blaise. Another French MAN team consisting of Anthony Janiec and Ellen Lohr, grande dame of truck racing, will find it extremely difficult to finish on the team podium — the competition is simply too strong.
It’s going to be pretty much the same story for the sole Mercedes Benz team. The boys from tankpool24 Racing are once again participating as a purely private team, using an engine they’ve race-prepped themselves with no factory support whatever. But André Kursim, and Dominique and Florian Orsini (father and son will alternate), aren’t daunted by the overwhelming superiority of the competition. All they’ve set themselves as a goal is to win as many points as possible.
Truck racing pioneer Frankie Vojtíšek from the Czech Republic (MAN), and the Nürburgring’s “Go-and-Stop king” Erwin Kleinnagelvoort (NLD), in his Scania, complete the list of full-season entrants.
Körber as a race-by-race entrant is joined by his Austrian Iveco teammate Markus Altenstrasser and Artur Ardavichus from Kazakhstan and the young Frenchman Jérémy Robineau (both MAN). Ardavichus, though, will represent the Lion team for the most part in the French championship.
And then there’s Englishman Chris Levett, who caused quite a stir at the Renault tests in Nogaro with his smartly liveried ex-MKR truck, who has announced his intention to take part in five races of the FIA ETRC in addition to his campaign in the British championship.
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