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Preliminary Report Barcelona

Preliminary Report Barcelona

03. April 2006The opening of the season 2006 at the Circuit de Catalunya is going to be a real 'debut'. For the first time there are no SuperRaceTrucks, but a great number of pilots – 9 altogether – who will benefit from the experiences they gained at the SuperTruck Races and use it to their advantage on the RaceTrucks. And now the 2004 Champion, Markus Oestreich, will take part with his Mercedes Axor, as well. His predecessor, Gerd Körber, had his first experiences with the RaceTruck already last year and was 3rd at the end.<br />
For a good 15 years now the two best known German truck racers put up a good fight on circuits all over Europe and we sure can expect more exciting duels. <br />
While we can only speculate about the actual capacity of Oese's new Axor, Gerd Körber could already boast good test results. Last week the man from Rheinau, when doing his first 'serious' laps in Most, could even stay 1 second and more below last year's minimum times.<br />
And quite successful, too, were some truck racers during the first testings in Nogaro in mid-March. Especially Markus Bösiger with his MAN could easily lower last year's record times. And the other pilots, e.g. Jochen Hahn and Niko Pulic with their new and totally overhauled Mercedes Axor resp. were highly satisfied. Same goes for Egon Allgäuer, whose new pilot, Markus Altenstrasser, has yet to 'get used' to driving a MAN-RaceTruck, before aiming for record times. And last, but not least, title holder Antonio Albacete, who could thoroughly test the Bernau MAN in Albacete last week. And his team was very satisfied, too.<br />
Regarding two further podium candidates, Adam Lacko (MAN) and Frankie Vojtisek (Renault) there is no information up to now. But it can be assumed that those two experienced teams will again have rather competitive RaceTrucks. Then there is David Vrsecky, whose Freightliner will be as good as the one of Körber and Rodrigues Jr., which means, there are around a dozen pilots, who could get a podium. <br />
Aside from the 25 FIA pilots, 2 more truck racers enter the Copa de Espana, plus there will be nine EM pilots, as well. The weather forecast for Friday says it will be a drizzly day, <br />
Saturday and Sunday are supposed to be a bit cloudy, but mostly dry, with temperatures of about 17 to 18 degree C (63 to 64 degree F).<br />
And a television crew will be there, too. On Tuesday, April 11, from 11 p.m. (23.00 h CET) Eurosport will report about the race in Barcelona for half an hour.