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Jarama Preliminary Report

Jarama Preliminary Report

29. September 2016A truck racer in the FIA European Championship can, in an ideal situation, win all four races on a weekend and take the maximum 60 points on offer.
With two rounds still to go this season, at
Circuito del Jarama near Madrid this weekend and Circuit Bugatti in Le Mans the next, a maximum of 120 points await that outstanding performer who manages somehow to win all eight races - something that hasn’t happened very often since the introduction of the reversed grid for each day’s second race.
Be that as it may, the 35-points advantage that Jochen Hahn has over Adam Lacko, the only other driver still in with a shot at the title, is anything but decisive at this point. Hahn knows this well - the German MAN pilot can sing a dirge about how quickly a seemingly unassailable lead can evaporate.
It’s clear, nevertheless, that Hahn is in a very comfortable position. He doesn’t have to beat the Czech Buggyra pilot anymore; finishing one place behind in each race would still win him the title - even if Lacko should win all eight races, he’d collect only 24 points more, not enough to bridge the current deficit.
But this calculation is – obviously – purely theoretical. Should Hahn finish with fewer points than we’ve assumed, or with none at all, the championship could take on a different complexion altogether.
The battle for third is considerably hotter. MAN pilots René Reinert, Steffi Halm (both GER), and Anthony Janiec (FRA), and Mercedes champion Norbert Kiss (HUN) are only 11 points apart.
The entry list has 21 trucks - all the season regulars plus a whole assortment of race-by-race participants, mainly from the Spanish national series.
The Cepsa red-and-white will notably be absent for the first time since Jarama became a part of the FIA ETRC. The Spanish petroleum company has moved its sponsorship focus entirely to Real Madrid, and so Spain’s national truck racing hero Antonio Albacete won’t be racing here, not even as a guest as his legions of fans might have hoped.
Even without Antonio to compete with on the track, the Jarama weekend will – for many fans, teams, and racers – still be the huge family reunion they’ve come to look forward to as the season winds down.
There’ll also be another reunion of a very special sort for the Portuguese Rodrigues family, an institution in truck racing. Eduardo and his son José have been around for as long as we can remember. For the senior Rodrigues the motivation has always been the Olympic consideration: participation above all else. José on the other hand has nurtured sporting ambitions all along - he presently races a Renault for Team 14 in the French championship.
But these won’t be the only Rodrigues-es racing each other in Jarama; José Eduardo is the third generation in the fray against his father José and grandfather Eduardo.
To the best of our knowledge this is the first time in the FIA ETRC that three generations of a single family will be competing together in the same event.

Impressions:

Jarama Preliminary Report
Jarama Preliminary Report
Jarama Preliminary Report