Sunday at the Nürburgring Part 1 – Hahn makes it a sweep of SuperPoles
03. July 2016Nürburgring - After a very long night – first the megaconcert and fireworks in the Müllenbachschleife; then several parties at individual trade exhibitors, sponsors, and teams; and not least the excitement surrounding the German soccer team’s march into the semifinals of the European Championship, – Sunday’s warm-up at the Truck Grand Prix, the 4th round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship, started at the ungodly hour of 8 am.
It was dry, despite the biting chill and the overcast skies.
Clearly ideal conditions for the three MAN race trucks from the House of Hahn, although the order they finished on the timing monitor was somewhat surprising. Steffi Halm was at the top, René Reinert next, and thrice champ Jochen Hahn third, a German all-star trio.
A picture of the racers’ true relative performance can only be got in qualifying and the SuperPole. But even before action could really begin, the red flags were out - Englishman Ryan Smith’s MAN had rolled to a stop in the apex of the Mercedes Arena.
It took 10 minutes for the truck to be retrieved. As soon as it was go again, Hahn blazed around the Ring in 1:54.564s on his very first flying lap, four-fifths quicker than teammate René Reinert. These two and the rest of the usual suspects ducked back into the pits, all certain of a spot in the SuperPole.
Hahn and Reinert were joined by Adam Lacko (CZE) in his Buggyra Freightliner, Halm, Frenchman Anthony Janiec (MAN), Iveco pilot Gerd Körber (GER), Jérémy Robineau (GBR) in his MAN, and Hungarian Norbert Kiss in the tankpool24 Mercedes, as they waited out the rest of qualifying.
The fight for the last two places kept Briton Shane Brereton and German Ellen Lohr out on the track for the full 20 minutes, these two completing the Top 10 for the SuperPole in that order.
After the regulation five-minute interval the shootout began.
Hahn once again set the quickest time, going three-hundredths faster in 1:54.559s. Most of the field recorded better times than in qualifying, but none of those was a patch on Hahn’s.
Kiss meanwhile had hit a setback, his 5th-place-securing lap struck down for exceeding track limits, leaving only his time of the outlap - about 30 seconds off Hahn’s pole-winning time. That dropped him to 10th.
Ahead of him on the grid are (besides Hahn) Reinert, Lacko, Halm, Körber, Robineau, Janiec, Lohr, and Brereton.
Impressions: