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Preliminary Report Nürburgring

Preliminary Report Nürburgring

04. July 2007The Truck Grand Prix on the Nürburgring is indisputably the year’s highlight of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship. Not only terrific motor sport events, but also an enormous and entertaining support programme motivates the crowds to make a pilgrimage to the Eifel circuit. At least 150,000 people can be expected, and if the weather is not too bad, it could even be about 200,000 – only the forecast is not very favourable, at least not for the first days. For “press day” on Thursday heavy rain and cool and gusty weather with wind speeds of about 50 km/h and more are expected. For Friday the outlook is a bit better, and for Saturday the prognosis is an almost cloudless sky with temperatures of more than 20 °C (68 °F). On Sunday it will still be warm, but there is the probability of rain showers. And then the teams should hurry to break up camp on Monday, because for the evening heavy thunderstorms are expected.
But before then there will again be some gripping races. Markus Bösiger, who is leading in the overall ranking, could already score an impressive victory on the Ring on Saturday last year; on Sunday, however, he had severe problems with the braking. Anyway, the Swiss demonstrated his ability to cope with this circuit. But his opponents, too, know the track like the back of their hands. Gerd Körber became “German Truck Master”, a title that was bestowed for the first time last year, and he will surely be determined to defend his title tooth and nail. And also Jochen Hahn, the only top pilot representing the Germans’ favourite “star” – the one from Stuttgart – can certainly count on the loud voiced support of the fans.
Probably the Frankie Team has more moderate expectation in regard to the races on the Ring. As we all know, “chief pilot” Frankie Vojtisek is seriously ill and Ross Garrett successfully stepped in for him in Nogaro. However, the Brit had some problems with the size of the Renault Race Truck – Frankie is about 15 cm taller – and with the left hand drive. But the team will certainly come to grips with these problems, and they will not waste much thought on Simeon Martin; this matter seems to be over and done with. In Nogaro the Spaniard was absent without excuse, and instead of Martin there will be Markus Altenstrasser piloting the second truck now. The Austrian was third on the podium on Sunday last year on an Allgäuer-MAN.
On the Nürburgring there will be a new speed indicator applied for the first time. Up to now it was not possible to check whether a pilot maintained the 160 km/h limit until after the race, but now it can be checked after each lap whether a pilot was overspeeding. So in future there will be a completely different perspective for imposing sanctions, which means there will be no longer the general 10 or 20 seconds time penalties, but instead drive-through-penalties could give the races a totally different course.
By the way, for the Mittelrhein Cup there will still be the previous FIA system. Possibly the one or other pilot – especially the drivers from Britain – will be surprised how fast their trucks actually are. We are looking forward to enjoying some interesting races, and those who cannot come to the Ring to watch the races, can at least listen to the on-site commentaries by Jörg Hennig and Hans-Joachim Ebertz live on this Web Portal. In addition there will be brief press releases from the ADAC now and again.
And on DS:F there will be a special titbit – a 45 minutes Truck Grand Prix TV report on Monday, at 21:45 (9:45 p.m.).