Friday, 29.03.2024 | Deutsch | English
Saturday in Le Mans Part 3 - André Kursim wins Race 2

Saturday in Le Mans Part 3 - André Kursim wins Race 2

29. September 2018Le Mans - It was a bracing 20°C when the trucks lined up on the grid for the second race of the day. A few minutes earlier the result of the first race had been revised. Reinert was obliged to trade places with Lacko, so that the Czech took the 8 points for P5. This also meant they switched sides on the second row of the grid, with Reinert on P3.
Kursim remained the undisputed polesitter, with Steffi Halm to his left, the chins of their front spoilers offset by a metre. The Don’t Touch Racing pilot got away untouched at the start, his senior Iveco colleague slotted in right behind him. While Halm was then busied with defending her position against the storming advances of Reinert and Lacko, Kursim continued to build his lead.
On Lap 1 itself, between the penultimate and the final curve that leads back onto the main straight, a wee bit before the entrance to pit lane, Jamie Anderson stalled his MAN in a precarious position, bringing out the yellow flags in this zone. A lap later, the pack arrived at the scene for the first time. The trio of Reinert, Halm, and Lacko had been trying to pass one another just before they saw the flags. At the very point at which the marshal was waving his yellow, there were inevitable contacts, with the result that Reinert was forced to take an excursion through the gravel pit, barely missing Anderson’s marooned MAN. On the following lap the MAN-in-blue made its way forlornly into the pits.
The events behind him played right into Kursim’s now somewhat calmer hands. His advantage grew and grew, the young German going on to take his first pole-to-flag victory for Iveco. Halm, meanwhile, had the Freightliner of Adam Lacko looming large in her mirrors, with the added element of Hahn, who had fought his way past Albacete and was now hammering away at Lacko’s rear crash guard. At times it looked like Hahn wanted to effect a second all-Iveco podium after Zolder. But it didn’t quite come to that, the championship leader evidently realising that the risk this would entail just wasn’t worth it. He crossed the line in P4, three tenths behind Lacko.
Albacete, Lenz, Kiss, Smith, and José Rodrigues came after, in intervals of a second apart. Brereton trailed them at some distance in P10, picking up the final point on offer.
The Brit took top spot in the Grammer Truck Cup for the second time today, ahead of Freightliner pilot Oly Janes (GBR) and Gibbon.
„Die Bullen von Iveco Magirus“ (Hahn / Steffi Halm) was again unbeatable in the team competition. Buggyra Racing 1969 (Lacko / Janes) came runner-up, followed by Truck Sport Lutz Bernau (Albacete / Recuenco).
Hahn has stretched his lead to 77 points and will wrap up his fifth title if he wins or finishes second in Race 3 tomorrow. Lacko has 230, followed by Albacete (195), Kiss (191), Lenz (180), Halm (165), Reinert (134), and Kursim (126).

Impressions:

Saturday in Le Mans Part 3 - André Kursim wins Race 2
Saturday in Le Mans Part 3 - André Kursim wins Race 2
Saturday in Le Mans Part 3 - André Kursim wins Race 2
Saturday in Le Mans Part 3 - André Kursim wins Race 2
Saturday in Le Mans Part 3 - André Kursim wins Race 2