Saturday in Zolder Part 1 – Pole for Lacko
17. September 2016Zolder - Warm-up for this first race day of the 7th round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship on Circuit Zolder in Belgium took place under a clouded sky with the temperature at around 16°C. MAN pilot René Reinert topped the timing monitor till the last lap, on which Czech Adam Lacko (Buggyra Freightliner) then went three-tenths quicker.
The rest were a second or more slower - but it was still only warm-up. You never really know who’s playing his hand and who’s playing poker. And again, the trucks are running on used rubber.
Two hours later, when qualifying began in earnest, the sun decided to get inquisitive and peek through the clouds. But the few rays that shone through weren’t enough to warm the outdoor spectators, who were chilling out at 17° in the shade.
Qualifying itself was just as cool an enterprise for the top-rated racers.
Lacko was a whole half-second slower than he’d gone in warm-up, but still quickest of the lot. Like the Czech, the two German MANler Jochen Hahn and René Reinert, and woMANler Steffi Halm, and their Iveco-piloting compatriot Gerd Körber, were back in the pits after a single flying lap, all confident of a place in the Top 10 for the SuperPole.
Immediately after, Frenchman Anthony Janiec (MAN), Hungarian Norbert Kiss (Mercedes-Benz), and MAN cub Sascha Lenz (GER) decided they had enough of an advantage over the remaining competitors to peel back in and conserve their tyres.
The second Buggyra pilot Jiří Forman (CZE) in his Freightliner Fatfox and tankpool24 driver André Kursim (GER) in his Mercedes-Benz kept going till the close for fear of being dumped out of the shootout by Ellen Lohr (GER) and Thomas Robineau (FRA) in their MANs.
Lacko and Hahn were once again the measure of a champion truck racer, both going under 1:58s for the first time this weekend. Lacko was the quicker of the two by about a tenth in 1:57.707, good enough for pole position on the grid for the first race at Circuit Zolder.
Reinert stepped up his pace considerably, but was still four-tenths off Lacko’s time.
He is joined on the second row by Janiec, with Halm, Kiss, Körber, Forman, Lenz, and Kursim taking the remaining places on rows 3 through 5.
Impressions:
