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Hungaroring Preliminary Report

Hungaroring Preliminary Report

13. June 2018Hungaroring - This legendary circuit near the Hungarian capital Budapest will host the second round of the 2018 FIA European Truck Racing Championship. “Hungary? Why, it’s only the second weekend,” you truck racing fans might wonder. The fact is, two events that have traditionally occupied the first half of the calendar, the rounds at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria, and Circuit Paul Armagnac in Nogaro, France, no longer feature. But the main reason why the truck racing weekend in Hungary was brought forward is because of modifications to be carried out at the Hungaroring following the Formula 1 weekend in July, as a consequence of which no major events will be held here for the rest of the year.
That’s not something the truck racers are concerned about. What they are hoping for is good weather conditions so that they can demonstrate their racecraft without having to contend with cloudbursts of the kind that resulted in chaotic outcomes at the DTM races only a couple of weeks ago.
But the prevailing climatic pattern over the region makes forecasting the weather with any degree of certainty next to impossible. Some of the meteorological services have prophesied uninterrupted sunshine for Saturday and Sunday; others predict storms of varying severity alternating with spells of sunshine. What they all seem to be in agreement about is that Thursday, the day on which most teams set up their equipment, will probably be the rainiest day, with – depending on whom you choose to believe – up to 50 litres of precipitation per square metre. But it’s going to be warm in any case, with the temperature at between 25° and 30°C.
There are 18 trucks on the entry list. Following the season-opener in Italy it appears that four-times champion Jochen Hahn and his Iveco are once again the measure of all truck racing things. But the German is also mindful of the misfortune that dogged Czech defending champ Adam Lacko at the Misano World Circuit – having similarly suffered last year. Lacko meanwhile knows he still has a good chance of defending his title, even if he’s only 5th in the standings – his stellar Saturday in Misano is proof enough.
Even local hero Norbert Kiss faced unforeseeable adversity in Misano. Following the spectacular fire on the MAN of Frankie Vojtíšek in the first race, the restart resulted in more laps being driven than the teams had planned for. Some of the trucks ran clean out of diesel, so that they had to be pushed back into the pits; on Kiss’s Mercedes the cooling water tanks for the brakes also emptied out completely. As it happened, the tankpool24 pilot was one of those whose machines were weighed post-race and found to be underweight. The infraction cost Kiss third place on the podium, but more than that, the ruling robbed him of an almost certain 2nd in the standings, considering how closely matched the top racers are.
That spot is now occupied by Steffi Halm. Following her switch to Iveco and Schwabentruck, nobody expected the young German to be as quick as she has been right from the go.
The Germans are strongly represented in the field of truck racers from seven nations; Hahn and Steffi have MAN stalwarts Sascha Lenz and René Reinert for company in the Top Seven.

Impressions:

Hungaroring Preliminary Report
Hungaroring Preliminary Report
Hungaroring Preliminary Report