Robineau starts the French season with wins in first two races
19. May 2018Thomas Robineau stole defending champ Anthony Janiec’s thunder on the opening day of the Championnat de France Camions, outqualifying his MAN colleague and then going on to win both races.
In some years Janiec has turned truck races in France often into one-man shows. Robineau stoutly defended his Race 1 pole, took a comfortable lead, and stretched his advantage over each successive lap. Just when you thought he’d had it in the bag, though, his tenacious adversary found a few ticks of extra pace and was soon enough up on Robineau’s rear crash guard. The spectators held their breaths in suspense – when would the yellow-and-black Lion MAN take the lead? Every time it looked as if Janiec was through, Robineau countered deftly and at the finish it was he that crossed the line ahead.
Renault pilot Lionel Montagne likewise was headed for a comfortable third-place finish till youngster Téo Calvet, who had started in third in the other Lion MAN but was beaten to the first corner by an overwhelmingly more experienced Montagne, found his second wind and reeled the Renault in. But Montagne wasn’t going to surrender his position for anything, and Calvet had to be content with a thankless fourth on his first outing in Le Castellet.
The top eight finishers from the first race start the second in reversed order. This meant DAF pilot Aurelien Herrgott was on pole, with Florian Orsini in the “family” Mercedes alongside on the front row. Robineau was up right behind them as the field thundered into the first corner, and Janiec and Calvet too had gained places. In the lead, though, was Team 14’s Polish racer Grzegorz Ostaszewski, tailed by his Renault colleague Montagne. It took only a couple of laps for Robineau to pass them, following which even Janiec made short work of the Renault duo. As in the first race, the two MANs disappeared into the distance, although Janiec couldn’t quite keep up with Robineau’s punishing pace.
Ostaszewski had Montagne clung to his rear, and Calvet had latched on meanwhile. This three-way bout cost them all so much time that Volvo pilot Franck Conti, who had fallen off early in the race, was able to catch up. At the end Calvet managed to pull ahead of the Pole, who was struggling with a tyre problem, followed by Montagne and Conti. Ostaszewski, who for several laps had been rather comfortable in third, could thus only cross the line in 6th. Later he was awarded a 30 second penalty that dropped him to 8th and promoted pole-starter Herrgott to 6th.
Téo Calvet celebrated his third-place finish with the uninhibited joy of a little child – he is, after all, only 17.
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