Sunday in Most

27. August 2006Most - On Sunday there were thunderstorms forecast, but the weather turned out to be better than predicted for an audience of approx. 60,000 in all. But when shortly before the second Cup race there was a heavy rain shower, the truck racers were rather worried, because nobody really knew what sort of tyres to put on. In the morning the timed practice proceeded under very good conditions, but nobody knew that they had practically already seen the day’s winners from the beginning. The fastest time was marked by Antonio Albacete (2:04.725), closely followed by David Vrsecky and Markus Oestreich. With a distance of almost one second on his Freightliner colleague followed championship candidate Gerd Körber on 7th position only. His “worst opponent” regarding the championship, Jochen Hahn, was on 5th position behind Markus Bösiger.
At the Qualification race there were no spectacular actions from the pilots of the leading group. Albacete took the lead from the start and defended his position right to the finish of the race. He was closely followed by Vrsecky and third was Oestreich. And also Bösiger, Hahn, Niko Pulic, Körber and Adam Lacko finished in just the same order as before at the timed practice. Only in the middle of the field there were fierce fights. A few metres from the start Markus Altenstrasser’s MAN was hit in the side. It spun round and almost everyone of the pack passed by. And suddenly his team mate Jo Adua was in the points behind Jose Rodrigues. But Frankie Vojtisek and Ross Garrett put so much pressure on the French that he got really nervous, and eventually his truck spun around. Shortly before the finish Rodrigues had to give up, too, and Garrett and Vojtisek could secure the last two places in the points.
The Cup race ended nearly exactly like the Qualifying race – had not Markus Bösiger ran into big trouble after the usual skirmish at the first chicane. So the Swiss had to let pass Hahn, Pulic and Körber and fell back on 7th position. Meanwhile the leading trio gained more and more ground. Oestreich’s main concern was to secure his 3rd position, whereas Vrsecky, inspired by the cheers of his compatriots, tried constantly to challenge Albacete for the victory – but in vain. Hahn drove easily on his 4th position, hoping till the end of the race that his Mercedes colleague Pulic would be able to take away some points from Gerd Körber, one of his opponents in the fight for the championship. But in the final lap the Freightliner pilot succeeded in passing the Croatian and gaining 5th position. Behind Bösiger there were Lacko, Garrett and Rodrigues who scored points.
Hahn is still leading the overall standing, having now 217 points. Because of his fantastic result of 60 points, Albacete (205) could oust Körber (192) from the 2nd position. And Oestreich, too, being on 4th position with 168 points, still stands a chance to win the title, because with 3 more racing weekends to come there are up to 180 points to gain for the pilots.
There was a large team from EUROSPORT TV in Most, but they could not yet tell us at what date the TV report will be broadcast. But for the German audience there will be a report on Hessischer Rundfunk on Monday, August 28, at 22:15 hours. Markus Oestreich is going to be the studio guest and there will be a short film about the events in Most.