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FIA prizegiving ceremony in Le Mans

FIA prizegiving ceremony in Le Mans

19. October 2016The ETRC season traditionally concludes with the FIA prizegiving ceremony. For the sixth year in a row the function was held in the big hall of Village Circuit Bugatti.
Till last year it was hosted jointly by the Truck Race Organisation TRO and the organisers of the season finale, France Routes and ACO. This year, for the first time in its more than 30 years of evolutionary history, the FIA ETRC had a full-time promoter in the ETRA, which also inherited responsibility for the closing ceremony.
English TV moderator David Addison did a very professional job as compere for the evening.
Manuel Vidal, president of the FIA’s Truck Racing Commission, was given a special present by the managing directors of ETRA in honour of his many years of service to European truck racing.
Brit Shane Brereton and Finn John Hemming were presented awards for their race-by-race engagement, plus vouchers for Goodyear racing tyres by the company’s European marketing director Davide Califano.
In the past we’d have a prize for Rookie Of The Year. This time the three youngsters in the field, Germans André Kursim and Sascha Lenz, and Czech Jiří Forman, were given exquisite trophies for Young Driver of the Year.
Truck racing, as our readers well know, is an age-less sport; Benedek Major was only 17 when he won his first race in Nogaro not so long ago, and former European champ and eight-times French titlist Noël Crozier was 67 when he finished third in his national series two years back.
Racing trucks is the open secret behind enduring youthfulness – another embodiment of this fact is five-times champion Steve Parrish, the winningest truck racer in Europe, even if he’s seven years younger than Crozier. Guest of honour at the final weekend, the Britisher gave away the prize for Drive of the Year to German women-on-wheels Ellen Lohr and Steffi Halm.
Jochen Hahn was handed a special trophy by FIA international race director Tony Iddon – for Driver of the Year, selected by the racers themselves, in recognition of the Swabian’s and his team’s ever-readiness to help other racers and teams in distress.
Then it was time to award the Top Three in the team and driver categories. The third-placed team was the newly constituted all-girl outfit WOW! with Ellen Lohr and Steffi Halm.
Defending champions Buggyra International 1969 with Adam Lacko and Jiří Forman were runners-up to last year’s third-placed team, Reinert Adventure with Jochen Hahn and René Reinert.
Three of those four drivers divided this year’s spoils among themselves. Jochen Hahn won his fourth FIA ETRC, bringing him closer to surpassing Steve Parrish’s record.
Adam Lacko was runner-up for the second year, and René Reinert made it onto the podium in his fifth season in the FIA ETRC.
At the end of the formalities Jochen Hahn invited all the racers present up for the “family photograph”, before individual teams took the stage for their season-ender shoots.
The crowd then moved on to the Hahn Racing marquee, where the party continued till between seven and eight Monday morning...

More pictures in the secion Photos - FIA Awards Ceremony.

Impressions:

FIA prizegiving ceremony in Le Mans
FIA prizegiving ceremony in Le Mans
FIA prizegiving ceremony in Le Mans