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Sunday in Zolder

Sunday in Zolder

10. September 2006Zolder - Again the teams and an audience of about 16,000 were welcomed by a clear blue sky. Because of the Holy Mass held in the little chapel the races could not start before 10:00 a.m., which suited the mechanics of some of the teams fine, who worked almost all night long. And in the Atkins team the boss himself, David Atkins, lent a helping hand. At the MAN of race-by-race pilot Chris Levett, who collided with Jose Rodigues in the Cup race, not only the radiator had to be replaced but at the front several parts had to be repaired.
In the morning FIA Technical Commissioner, Fabien Calvet, inspected the teams’ lollipops with the go and stop signals which were required in Zolder. It is said there was some reproof, but on the other hand these lollipops were only recommended by Permanent Race Director Tony Iddon and are not mentioned in the regulations of the FIA.
At the timed practice, where Markus Oestreich always fared extremely well at all the race weekends, he now experienced a great disappointment. At the warm-up the Mercedes pilot was on 2nd position behind Gerd Körber, but in the timed practice he did not have considerably faster times, while other pilots, such as team mate Niko Pulic, could better their times by up to 1 ½ seconds. So the Petersberger had to contend with starting position #7. On the first two positions at the starting line there were again two Buggyra pilots, Gerd Körber and David Vrsecky, with Vrsecky on pole. Next came Pulic and Antonio Albacete (MAN), Jochen Hahn (Mercedes-Benz) and Markus Bösiger (MAN) and then Oestreich.
The Qualification race saw a superior Gerd Körber. Right from the start he took the lead and left pole setter Vrsecky behind, and Pulic, too, succeeded to pass the Czech. Otherwise the leading group stayed in the same position they had started from, with Albacete and Hahn on 4th and 5th position respectively. Markus Bösiger soon had to give up because of a clutch failure, so that Oestreich now was on 6th position. And in exactly that order the sextet later crossed the finish. Frankie Vojtisek on his Renault made the greatest leap forward. Starting from 12th position the Czech finished on 7th position, followed by three MAN pilots, Markus Altenstrasser, Adam Lacko and Jose Rodrigues.
The Cup race was almost a duplicate of the previous race. Again Gerd Körber took the lead and once more it was a start-finish victory for him. Pulic followed close behind. At first Vrsecky could defend his 3rd position, but before the first lap was finished, Albacete managed to overtake the Czech. At the start, Hahn was still among the front runners Albacete, Vrsecky and Oestreich, but after only several hundred metres a front brake disc broke, and the Mercedes pilot had no alternative but to drive to the pit. After only one lap, the first five pilots could already ensure their positions, but behind Oese there were fierce fights for the further positions. At first it seemed that the experienced driver Vojtisek could once more fight off his nominally superior opponents, but in the end, one after another, the three MAN pilots, Lacko, Altenstrasser and Rodrigues, overtook the Czech’s red Renault, so that Vojtisek dropped back to 9th position. On 10th position followed the badly battered MAN of Joseph Adua.
Without the burst of the air tube on Saturday, maybe it would have been another dream weekend for Gerd Körber. So with 47 points his team mate Vrsecky was the most eager point collector. But certainly the “moral victory” belonged to title holder Albacete. The Spaniard was not only the sole pilot who, of the top trio of the championship ranking, scored points in all the races, but he also re-conquered the leading position from the unlucky fellow Jochen Hahn.
The overall standing is now: Albacete (244 points), Hahn (229), and Körber (232).