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Truck Grand Prix Preliminary Report

Truck Grand Prix Preliminary Report

30. June 2016Nürburgring - The Truck Grand Prix on the Nürburgring is the climactic event on the calendar of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship. Thirty-one years on, the TGP has lost none of its attractiveness - neither for the fans nor for the truck racers. In addition to the 14 FIA full-season trucks there are seven race-by-race entrants this year, swelling the field for the FIA races alone to 21. And then there are all the trucks that participate exclusively in the Mittelrhein Cup, and more than 30 GT cars from the Blancpain series. The paddock is veritably bursting at the seams.
Now that the truck industry too looks like its booming again, and after the hesitancy of the last few years has rediscovered the value of the TGP as offering one of the best opportunities on this planet to project itself, the paddock is packed like we’ve never seen it.
After all these years, the Truck Grand Prix continues to exert a powerful fascination. And now the organisers are going to break new ground - for the first time all four races will be televised live, by Motors TV. Subscribers to Sky’s satellite services in most countries should be able to tune in to this motorsport-focused channel. Motors TV is also telecast through select cable networks in Germany and Switzerland.
It’s a beginning yet, a continuation of the video live-stream that was presented here on truckracing.de / truckrace.info from 2008 through 2014 in co-operation with ADAC Mittelrhein und the Truck Race Organisation TRO and watched by hundreds of thousands all over the world.
There’s no denying, however, that watching truck racing on a screen, whether on television or the Internet, simply cannot compare to being there yourself. It can at best be thought of as an appetiser.
Truck racing is motorsport up close for the entire family, a contact sport every way you look at it: on the track between the race trucks and in the paddock between the racers and the fans. And the TGP is – and has been for many years now – a must-attend event.
Here it’s not only racing but an entire compendium of events - the parade, which many truckers look forward to the whole year, the concerts in the Müllenbachschleife, and naturally the truck show on the infield. It’s an opportunity for manufacturers to get close to their customers like at no other event, and they pull out all the stops to give their special guests a very special experience.
But the most important item on the agenda remains the racing, more specifically the races of the FIA ETRC.
Thousands of Jochen Hahn fans would be jubilating if their hero retakes the championship lead in his blue-and-white MAN on Sunday evening. Of course, he’s a negligible two points behind leader Adam Lacko (CZE), the Buggyra Freightliner driver. But these two aren’t the only ones on the prowl for points. The third feline (referring to the badges - the MAN lion and Buggyra the panther) in the pride is the blue MAN of Hahn’s compatriot and Reinert Adventure teammate René Reinert. Even Steffi Halm (GER), who joined the party at the second event in Misano, has shown time and again that she is every bit as quick with her MAN – one more from the Hahn workshops – as her “boss” Reinert. Her truck has, after all, been entered by Reinert Racing.
And now defending champ Norbert Kiss has flung himself into the fray, ascending the podium far earlier in the season than was expected of him after his switch to tankpool24. At the Nürburgring the Mercedes pilot will be determined to show that his win in Nogaro wasn’t a fluke, seeing as the TGP is as good as a home event for the Hungarian, driving a Mercedes for a German team.
The races here will be a genuine home game for another very young driver, who nevertheless celebrates his 10th year of racing at the ’ring. MAN pilot Sascha Lenz lives only a few kilometres from the circuit; as such, he will probably have the largest fan contingent for support, one he’s inherited from his father, thrice European champ Heinz-Werner Lenz. The senior Lenz now only drives when he can for the fun of it, but the TGP is one event he never misses.
And so the elder will endeavour to teach the younger a few tricks, even if his somewhat long-in-the-tooth Mercedes won’t be able to keep up with the MAN of his son.
The TGP will be home game for another old-timer - Iveco pilot Gerd Körber, a thrice European champ in his day. The season so far hasn’t quite gone the way Körber’d have liked it to: the newly built Schwabentruck Iveco hasn’t run the way he and the team wanted it to. But they’ve worked hard on it over the last few weeks and believe they’re now good for a significantly better showing. Of course, the second Iveco with Markus Altenstrasser returns for the TGP.
All in all, lots of exciting and spectacular racing to look forward to.

Impressions:

Truck Grand Prix Preliminary Report
Truck Grand Prix Preliminary Report
Truck Grand Prix Preliminary Report
Truck Grand Prix Preliminary Report