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Saturday in Spielberg Part 1 – First pole of the season goes to Hahn

Saturday in Spielberg Part 1 – First pole of the season goes to Hahn

30. April 2016Spielberg - It was a clear, frigid night once again. But the blazing sun quickly raised the temperatures to very cosy levels, as long as you were out in its glow. Even the asphalt got warmer - and grippier. The two German MAN pilots Jochen Hahn and René Reinert called the shots like they did yesterday in free practice.
The track surface had warmed to above 20°C by the time qualifying rolled round, the first showdown of the season if you could call it that. But none of the top drivers really went much quicker. Hahn appeared to be taking it easier at the beginning, allowing Reinert to top the timing monitor with a 1:04.864s before stepping on the gas to catch up to within four-tenths. They were followed by a pack of 10 trucks spread a half-second apart - Buggyra pilot Adam Lacko (CZE), Hungarian Norbert Kiss (Mercedes-Benz), the two Iveco drivers Markus Altenstrasser (AUT) and Gerd Körber (GER), and an MAN phalanx consisting of Ryan Smith (GBR), Thomas Robineau (FRA), Sascha Lenz and Ellen Lohr (both GER), Anthony Janiec (FRA), and Frankie Vojtíšek (CZE).
The leaders had, in the interest of tyre conservation, long returned to the pits to wait out the remainder of qualifying while the rest stayed out the full 20 minutes, some of them driving up to 17 laps, covering almost a complete race distance.
At the end Lohr managed to hold Janiec off and secure 10th and a spot in the SuperPole by six-thousandths of a second.
In his first SuperPole lap Hahn set a time of 1:04.784s, followed by Reinert only 41 thousandths behind. Then the bantam from Altensteig went one better, seizing pole for the first race of the season with a blistering 1:04.630s. Slotting in behind the two MAN drivers was home hero Altenstrasser, who’d wowed the local crowd with his consistently quick laps during practice.
At the very last second Smith leapfrogged Kiss into fourth alongside Altenstrasser on the second row of the grid. The remaining spots were taken by Lenz, Lacko, Robineau, Körber, and Lohr. The top 10 were rather closely spaced at the end, only six-tenths separating Altenstrasser from Körber.

Impressions:

Saturday in Spielberg Part 1 – First pole of the season goes to Hahn
Saturday in Spielberg Part 1 – First pole of the season goes to Hahn
Saturday in Spielberg Part 1 – First pole of the season goes to Hahn
Saturday in Spielberg Part 1 – First pole of the season goes to Hahn
Saturday in Spielberg Part 1 – First pole of the season goes to Hahn