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Most Preliminary Report

Most Preliminary Report

27. August 2014After a break of almost six weeks, the FIA European Truck Racing Championship now goes into the second half of the 2014 season with the sixth round in Most, the Czech Republic. Autodrom Most is only a few kilometres inside the border with Germany, the live commentary aired over the loudspeakers has traditionally been bilingual – Czech and German, – and the event has long served as a second home race for the strong German contingent. With MANamazons Stephanie Halm and Ellen Lohr, defending champ Jochen Hahn and teammate René Reinert (both also MAN), and tankpool24 pilot André Kursim (Mercedes) and the lone race-by-race pilotes Gerd Körber in an Iveco, Germans make up a good 30 percent of the 20-strong field here.
But it’s not only numerical strength; in Hahn the Germans also have a good shot at the championship. There are a maximum of 240 points still up for grabs in the remaining rounds, and the present leader, Spanish MAN driver Antonio Albacete, has a slender three-points advantage over his Hungarian MAN colleague Norbert Kiss and 11 over Hahn. These three MANler are the hottest title aspirants, but you can’t write off the two Czechs Adam Lacko and David Vršecký, even though their wins and podiums have so far been in the handicap races, a haul that’s good for only half the points. Their race truck, the Buggyra Freightliner, is built not quite 90 km away, and the two drivers know this track like the backs of their hands.
But Autodrom Most is also frequented by many other drivers testing their trucks, and a number of teams were here over the last few weeks. The remaining weren’t doing nothing; some of them were testing as far away as in Portugal. Those who weren’t (testing) might have looked forward to the taxi rides for the press and VIPs, which entail an additional hour of practice. But even though it’s a three-day event again, that opportunity isn’t going to be available this time; the weekend kicks off with the first free practice.
Times in the first qualifying session and the SuperPole are usually the first indicators of a driver’s true competitiveness, because there’s no knowing before whether a driver has played his hand. The weather too looks like a game of poker. Large swathes of Central Europe are at present under a depression, and though the skies should clear up somewhat over the next couple of days, the forecast for the weekend is changeable.
Even so the truck racers expect swarms of fans, including many day-trippers from Germany. At no other FIA series does one get as close up to the drivers and vehicles as in the open paddock of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship.

Impressions:

Most Preliminary Report
Most Preliminary Report
Most Preliminary Report