Championnat de France Camions in Nogaro – Janiec makes it a clean sweep
10. June 2018Nogaro - It was a hot day for the 33,000 spectators at Circuit Paul Armagnac in Nogaro. A severe storm the evening before caused the party of the showtruck drivers to have to be moved into town hall. Another consequence was that the pace in warm-up this morning was nowhere as frenetic as it might otherwise have been, the top racers lapping at 10-seconds-plus slower than their best times Saturday.
They were back up to top speed in qualifying and in the Super Pole. Anthony Janiec was in his own orbit in the Lion MAN, a massive 1.8 seconds quicker than his closest rival Thomas Robineau (also MAN). Janiec’s Lion teammate Téo Calvet was four tenths slower, followed very closely by Polish pilot Grzegorz Ostaszewski and his Renault colleague Lionel Montagne.
Janiec played up to his billing as favourite right from the start of the day’s first race. He took the lead into the first corner and then secured his third win on the trot by a fat margin from Robineau.
The first real fight was for third place, 17-year-old Téo Calvet relegating Ostaszewski to 4th by a second and a half. Montagne was beset by gremlins from the start and fell out of contention altogether.
Race 4 saw the top eight finishers start in reversed order. Mercedes pilot Florian Orsini was quickest to the first corner, but even before the field could cross the line for the first time Ostaszewski, who’d started three places behind the Frenchman, had taken over the lead. Janiec meanwhile was storming up, and on Lap 3 the yellow Lion MAN had set itself at the head of the field.
Robineau wasn’t as fleet of foot in making up ground, but by mid-race he’d managed to take 2nd. Preventing another overwhelming Janiec victory, though, was out of the question.
Calvet girded himself for another wrestle with Ostaszewski for 3rd, but a damaged tyre on his drive axle put paid to the youngster’s podium ambitions. He topped the juniors classification nevertheless – for the fourth time in a row. By just three tenths he salvaged 4th from a hard-charging Montagne, who’d started down in 15th.
This year the organisers in Nogaro revived an idea from the earliest years of truck racing – the Grand Finale. In those years the competition was held in three classes divided by engine displacement, and at the end there would be a single heat for all participants, with no points to be won but rather bragging rights – and, of course, a little prize money.
Janiec and Robineau were on the front row for the start of this somewhat shorter race, with Ostaszewski and Calvet behind them. Once again Janiec asserted his dominance of the field in the Championnat de France Camions, lapping more than one second faster on average than the next man. The battle for the two remaining podium spots was fierce. If you thought there was nothing more to fight for, or that the racers would hold back to make sure they all made it across the line in one piece, you were sadly mistaken. Nobody gave an inch – not in the tussle for the podium places, and not further down the field either.
Robineau eventually finished 2nd ahead of Ostaszewski, to whom Calvet ceded position by a second.
Janiec continues to trail Robineau in the overall standings thanks to one retirement in a 20-points race in Castellet. Robineau has 116.5 points, Janiec 101, Calvet 86, Ostaszewski 72, and Montagne 68.5.
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