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Saturday in Jarama Part 3 - Third win of the season, first for Lacko, then for Kiss

Saturday in Jarama Part 3 - Third win of the season, first for Lacko, then for Kiss

05. October 2019Jarama - Utter chaos attended Race 2, at least on the first lap.
Polesitter Reinert took the lead initially, José Rodrigues edging in right behind him. A couple of corners later the Portuguese yielded to Lacko. The first lap had not yet been run when Mercedes pilot Fabio Citignola (GER) went off into the gravel with damage to his truck’s steering. A few metres further, in the last corner, the fast right-hander leading onto the main straight, a broken spring sent Anderson hurtling headlong into a tyre barrier. The dangerous positions in which the two trucks found themselves meant only one thing – red flags.
Entering the Le Mans, Lacko decided to plug a small gap that Reinert had left open, forcing the German off the track. The blue Iveco lost a few positions, but the race had already been stopped, so the manoeuvre counted for nothing really – only the Iveco now had a punctured left front tyre.
It took at least half an hour till Citignola’s Mercedes and Anderson’s MAN were towed back into the pits and the rest of the trucks could set off on the second formation lap, following the original grid minus Reinert, who’d had to pit for a tyre replacement. Lacko’s Freightliner hadn’t emerged unscathed either, but was allowed to be repaired on the grid under supervision of the Technical Delegate.
Rodrigues led off of the restart, while Reinert was allowed to start only from pit lane. Citignola’s tankpool24 team had his Mercedes repaired in time, and he too was able to start, albeit from pit lane behind Reinert. Anderson’s MAN, on the other hand, was too severely damaged to make the restart.
Rodrigues withstood the pressure from his impatient pursuers for three laps, before he was passed first by Lacko and then by Kiss. From there on, it was all or nothing for the two former champions. Every attempt the Hungarian made over the 12 laps to stick it to the Czech was met with a stout defence, the Freightliner pilot eventually finishing half a second ahead.
Not far behind, a second race of champions played out. Hahn had made his way up to P4 at the start, but a rare mistake at the Curva del túnel at the end of the second lap had him back to square one, as it were, in P7 behind Albacete. What ensued was a spirited chase of his archrival, only a shade less aggressive than Kiss’s pursuit of Lacko. Along the way the two overtook Lenz and Rodrigues, while Halm, who was ahead of them in P3 till just two laps to the finish, hit a patch of oil and skidded off across the gravel, losing not only much of the plastic panels on her Iveco in the excursion but also 10 positions.
P3 thus fell to Albacete, who made it home barely six tenths ahead of Hahn, with Lenz by now within a second of the six-times champ.
José Rodrigues finished sixth, followed a few seconds later by Janiec and Kursim, who had engaged in a duel all their own. Reinert came in P9, having vanquished half the field to get into the points. Janes finished 10th.
Janes took the win in the Grammer Truck Cup from MAN pilot José Eduardo Rodrigues (POR) and Dutchman Erwin Kleinnagelvoort (Scania).
All we’ve reported so far is the way things stood late in the evening. There were protests, dismissals of those protests, renewed protests, and finally a 10 second penalty for Lacko. At 10 pm the penalty was confirmed, and the podium was revised to Kiss, Albacete, and Hahn. P4 went to Lenz, while Lacko was classified only sixth, behind Rodrigues.
Buggyra Racing 1969 (Janes / Lacko) had edged Löwen Power (Albacete / Lenz) and tankpool24 Racing (Kiss / Citignola) out in the team classification, but that was before Lacko was penalised. The new order was Löwen Power ahead of tankpool24 Racing and „Die Bullen von Iveco Magirus“.
Having claimed the championship in Le Mans, Hahn continues to stretch his lead and now has 346 points. The battle for second place rages on – Albacete has 249 points to Lacko’s 235. Steffi Halm (198) is somewhat secure in P4, ahead of Lenz (177) and Kiss (172), who you can be sure will take their fight for fifth down to the wire.

Impressions:

Saturday in Jarama Part 3 - Third win of the season, first for Lacko, then for Kiss
Saturday in Jarama Part 3 - Third win of the season, first for Lacko, then for Kiss
Saturday in Jarama Part 3 - Third win of the season, first for Lacko, then for Kiss