Sunday in Valencia Part 1 – Norbert Kiss claims pole

26. April 2015Valencia - It was a temperate 20°C outdoors when the trucks rolled onto the tarmac for the warm-up on the second day of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship round on Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia at 8:30 this morning, but the track surface was much cooler. MAN pilot Kiss was once again a class apart, setting a time of 2:01.700s that none of his competitors could touch. Why, the Hungarian himself hadn’t come anywhere close in the SuperPole yesterday.
Qualifying began an hour later.
As is now customary, the top drivers were back in the pits after just one flying lap apiece, Kiss content with 2:02.100s and the other FIA pilots all confident, too, of having made the SuperPole. Even Portuguese Eduardo Rodrigues (MAN), whose quickest laps had been struck down. In the event, he was shut out of the shootout by a mere second.
Kiss was joined by Buggyra pilot Adam Lacko (CZE), Spaniard Antonio Albacete (MAN), Czech David Vršecký (Buggyra Freightliner), an MAN phalanx consisting of Jochen Hahn, René Reinert (both GER), Anthony Janiec (FRA) and Ellen Lohr (GER), Scania pilot Erwin Kleinnagelvoort (NED), and Spanish race-by-race pilot David Plaza (MAN).
Kiss wasn’t letting pole get away from him this time, and he scorched the circuit in 2:01.513s on his first flying lap - more than 6/10ths quicker than Lacko in second. The second row on the grid was taken up by Hahn and Vršecký, followed by Reinert, Albacete, Lohr, Janiec, Kleinnagelvoort, and Plaza.

Impressions: