Thursday, 28.03.2024 | Deutsch | English
Slovakia Ring This And That

Slovakia Ring This And That

27. July 2018For the second year running a contingent of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship went to work at the Slovakia Ring, a little over 40 km east-southeast of the Slovak capital Bratislava. The race track, built in 2009, is on of the smallest ETRC circuits with a spectator capacity of around 10,000, but is the longest by far at almost 6 km – and, above all, the fastest. Average speeds here are a good 15 km/h above those on the Nürburgring.
Eight of the 14 curves are tricky for the trucks to negotiate at race speed. Three of those eight are right-handed and five turn to the left. In free practice itself quite a few of the racers fell victim to the notorious Turn 6, a fast right-hander that narrows progressively. Exploring the limits, many of them ended up shooting off into the generous gravel trap.
The high track temperatures were extremely tough on the tyres, predominantly those on the front left. As a result, some of the teams made maximum use of the joker option on their tyre allocations – the Top 10 are allowed six extras over the entire season. Towards the end of every race you could see pilots not being able to hold off pursuers any longer because their tyres had worn out.
Four-times champion Jochen Hahn (GER) extended his lead in the overall standings. He, too, likely put his joker options to good use. But even his record lap showed what an influence the heated asphalt could exert on tyre grip. In warm-up early Sunday morning, the Iveco pilot went half a second quicker on used tyres than in the Super Pole two hours later on a new set. With a haul of 51 points the bantam from Altensteig is the top scorer in three of the four rounds so far.
Following a fluent win in Race 1, Spaniard Antonio Albacete (MAN), who’d beaten Hahn on points at the Nürburgring, albeit by a slim margin, appeared to have taken up from where he’d left off at the Truck Grand Prix. But things didn’t quite work in the Madrilène’s favour thereafter. His Sunday, in particular, was pointless (pardon the pun). First a broken speed regulator resulted in him being disqualified for multiple overspeed infringements. That meant he’d have to start last in the concluding race, and here he could finish no higher than in 11th.
The record number of overspeed penalties this season will play a deciding role in the outcome of the championship – if they haven’t already. With the top nine trucks and drivers so closely matched on performance, a single 10 second penalty could translate into a pointless race.
Even Briton Shane Brereton, who topped the Grammer Truck Cup standings both times on Saturday, winning Race 2 overall, and is the best-placed Chrome-category driver for a promotion to the Top 10, also got to experience how seeming trifles can have a massive influence on the final outcome of a race. On Sunday the MAN pilot could earn only four points after losing out on the coveted 8th place, and pole position for the concluding race, to tankpool24 pilot Steffen Faas (GER) – by only half a second.
At the start of Race 4, as both Mercedes trucks with Faas and his Hungarian teammate Norbert Kiss ran alongside in one accord in pursuit of the MAN of René Reinert, nobody in tankpool24 Racing dared believe they’d both finish on the podium. But Steffen nevertheless put on his strongest showing this season, to add to Kiss’s victory in the race.
In the earlier race only 15 thousandths of a second separated Steffi Halm’s Iveco and Kiss’s Mercedes at the flag; in this one six trucks crossed the line inside of four seconds. This is the closest season the FIA European Truck Racing Championship has seen in some. This is evident in the standings as well – while Hahn has a relatively comfortable lead of 57 points, only 35 points separate second-placed Czech defending champ Adam Lacko (Buggyra Freightliner) and MAN pilot Sascha Lenz in 6th. A driver can win 60 points in one weekend (for a minimum effective advantage of 12 points), and there are four of those still to go.