Saturday in Nogaro Part 1 – Penalty for Kiss hands pole to Hahn
20. June 2015Nogaro - Early this morning the sun, having risen at 6:17 am, was all but hidden by the clouds - but they presently cleared away, allowing Circuit Paul Armagnac in Nogaro to bask in the glow of the glorious Occitànian summer.
But as the fourth round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship was about to kick off, all the participants and fans were still abuzz with the excitement of the parade yesterday evening through the narrow streets and lanes of Nogaro, which normally are off-limits for trucks. Indeed, parts of Nogaro had to be closed off just to make room for the massive party in this tiny town of 3,000 souls.
The truckrace community was able to build on the goodwill of the local police once again this morning.
There had been a misunderstanding over the participation of Ryan Smith. The Englishman had registered himself, albeit at very short notice, as a race-by-race pilot for the Nogaro round, and was accordingly included on the FIA entry list. But when Smith’s team hadn’t arrived by Thursday evening, Jochen Hahn (from whom Smith had bought his MAN race truck) felt obliged to investigate. He called Smith up and found out that the Englishman had taken the absence of any further intimation from the FIA following the stock reply he’d received to his application – “Pending final confirmation” – as indication that he’d been too late. But Smith also told him that his team was packed and ready to roll to the Nürburgring, so they could, if they started straightway, make it overnight to the south of France.
And that’s what they did too, but some 30 km from Nogaro the trailer picked up not one but two tyre punctures - but had only one spare.
TRO president Fabien Calvet, who’s also the FIA’s ETRC coordinator, and the owners of the circuit had once again to approach the police, who had been so ready to help the evening before. And so, with police outriders before and behind him, Smith drove his race truck on the country road directly to the paddock, while his crew waited for help to arrive.
The light blue MAN had cleared technical scrutineering and was good to go at the start of qualifying.
In the warm-up Spaniard Antonio Albacete (MAN) sprung a surprise on his competitors with a timesheet-topping 1:52.568s. Albacete was right up in front even in qualifying… till the dominant driver of the season so far, Hungarian defending champ Norbert Kiss (MAN), demonstrated yet again just why he has so many points to his name. With a lap of 1:52.134s he’d blazed streets ahead of the rest of the field.
Kiss and Albacete were joined by MAN pilot Jochen Hahn (GER), the two Czechs David Vršecký and Adam Lacko (Buggyra Freightliner), and an MAN armada consisting of René Reinert (GER), Anthony Janiec (FRA), Ellen Lohr and Steffi Halm (both GER) - and Smith. The Englishman had made it into the Top 10 on his first visit to the Circuit Paul Armagnac, after all the stress of the hectic journey too!
The outcome of the SuperPole appeared to be a small sensation with Lacko on top till the final lap, albeit with a time above 1:53s. At the last moment, however, Kiss (1:52.717s) and Hahn found their second wind, even if they too weren’t able to attain to their earlier times. Nor, too, was Albacete, whose time in the warm-up would have made him a shoo-in for pole.
Kiss and Hahn were followed by Lacko and Albacete on the second row of the grid, then Vršecký, Reinert, Halm, Lohr, Janiec, and Smith.
An hour and a half later, the postscript: Kiss was stripped of his fastest lap for blocking another driver. Pole now was Hahn’s, with Lacko alongside on the front row, followed by Albacete, Kiss, and the rest of the grid unaltered.
Impressions:
