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Saturday at the Slovakia Ring Part 1 – Fourth pole of the season for Hahn

Saturday at the Slovakia Ring Part 1 – Fourth pole of the season for Hahn

06. July 2019Slovakiaring - The first race day of Round 3 of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship at the Slovakia Ring dawned bright and clear. Adam Lacko (Buggyra Freightliner) topped the 15-minute warm-up with a 2:43.255, the best time so far this weekend.That was no surprise – after their experience here last year, the truck racers fully expected to be lapping at their quickest in the early morning. And Lacko had some catching-up to do, having not been able to use all 220 minutes of track time yesterday to his satisfaction because of fresh teething troubles with his golden Buggyra truck.
The differences in times between the individual pilots were immense – in truck racing terms. Some of the pilots used the opportunity to practice alternative lines (determined by means of a study of telemetry data from yesterday’s training sessions) through specific corners, but otherwise took it rather easy.
The real cut and thrust of competition began with qualifying, which Steffi Halm topped in 2:43.735, her compatriot and „Die Bullen von Iveco Magirus“ teammate Jochen Hahn coming in a tenth slower followed by Hungarian Norbert Kiss in his tankpool24 Mercedes less than seven hundredths off.
Spaniard Antonio Albacete (MAN), Iveco pilot André Kursim (GER), Lacko, Germans Sascha Lenz (MAN) and René Reinert (Iveco), and MAN pilots Luis Recuenco (ESP) and Jamie Anderson (GBR) completed the top 10. The track length of almost 6 km allows for only one flying lap in the 10 minutes of qualifying; there’s no opportunity to make up for the slightest mistake.
The same holds true for the Super Pole, which followed five minutes after. At the end there was a bit of confusion – a couple of pilots, not having realised that the 10 minutes were up, set off on a second hot lap. The final outcome remained unchanged, however. Hahn went more than half a second faster to plant his flagstaff on pole, his fourth in five qualifying sessions so far this season, with 2:43.399. Kiss was three tenths slower in P2. Halm came in third-quickest, followed by Lacko, Albacete, Lenz, Reinert, Recuenco, Anderson, and Kursim. The young German, driving the Don’t Touch Racing Iveco, had his time cancelled for bowling over a corner marker.