Sunday at the Hungaroring Part 3 – Albacete bounces back

06. September 2015Hungaroring - A few dark clouds appeared at around midday, but the weather stayed gorgeous and the temperatures at around 20°C till the final race in front of 32,000 boisterous spectators — or should we say “Norbi” partisans.
Once again the formation lap turned out to be a pre-race lap of honour for Norbert Kiss; the defending champ has been idolised this entire weekend like a pop star.
The tankpool24 team meanwhile was celebrating the first pole in its relatively short history in the sport. It’s true that nobody in Team MB Motorsport presumed that Roland Rehfeld would finish on the podium, but they certainly did expect that he’d collect a few more points. Right at the start, however, it was painfully clear once again that the Mercedes engine doesn’t have the juice. While Albacete shot into the lead the instant the lights turned green, Rehfeld fell to fourth place. A little later he was in eighth, and not long after he’d dropped out of the points altogether.
Kiss was all fired up for another epic chase – he’d started in eighth place, – but his competitors were in no mood to oblige.
There were a number of smaller scuffles between racers who fancied their chances for a place on the podium - and there were more than a few of them. This constant wrangling was holding up their increasingly impatient pursuers. Lohr and Janiec in particular were the first pair that needed to be overtaken, but so many others must have gnashed their teeth in frustration for several laps trying to get ahead of these two in the earlier races, and that’s what was happening again now. Albacete out ahead was definitely delighted that he could keep building his lead.
Lacko and Reinert, who had started on the last row, were – like Kiss – driven by an irresistible urge to get ahead.
The running order gradually began to crystallise.
Albacete was clear in the lead followed by Vršecký, and the top two places on the podium appeared to have been fairly decided - should nothing untoward come to pass.
Kiss meanwhile was gaining ground at an alarming pace, and you could make out only by the loud cheers of his fans, who were following the action on the giant screens around the track, when their hero had overhauled another truck ahead of him.
He was now up to third place, headed for his fourth podium of the weekend. But that evidently wasn’t good enough. Without letting up even momentarily he bore down on Vršecký, and soon the Buggyra pilot was just another statistic on Norbi the Horrible’s list of victims. Albacete was too far ahead to catch, so Kiss had to content himself with second... finally.
Hahn came in fourth behind Vršecký and ahead of Lacko, Reinert, Halm, Janiec, Lohr, and Vojtíšek.
The top team this time was Truck Sport Bernau-Albacete (Lohr / Albacete), with Buggyra (Vršecký / Lacko) second and Oxxo-Lion (Kiss / Janiec) third.
Kiss naturally continues to lead the championship standings with 441 points with a massive cushion over Hahn (322), who is followed by Lacko (321), Vršecký (289), Albacete (245), and Reinert (160).

Impressions: