Jochen Hahn with MAN

25. January 2008As a matter of fact it was already an open secret in the truck racing community, but now it is official: Jochen Hahn, who was Germany’s most successful truck racer in 2007, is going to start the new season on a MAN TGS; yesterday they came to an agreement in Munich. The switch to another car manufacturer will certainly be much more difficult to get accustomed to for the fans than for the pilot himself. Hahn and Mercedes were a symbiosis which appeared to be an inseparable relationship for eleven years. But from now on there will be the three capital letters M A N at the front of Hahn’s RaceTruck instead of the three-point star. So now the Bavarian truck manufacturer has yet again a German top pilot in their ranks. And the odds are in favour for the Swabian that he will not only make life difficult for his opponents from Buggyra and Renault, but for the established MAN pilots, too, there will be another one who not only will challenge them for the points, but has, by all means, ambitions to have some say in regards to winning the title.
In addition, the team managed to engage one of the most outstanding RaceTruck constructors, Stefan Honens. The native-born Westphalian gained his first experiences with the Bickel Tuning Team of Gerd Körber; he played a decisive role in the development of Gerd Körber’s DAF SuperRaceTruck, and afterwards he worked with Markus Oestreich’s Mercedes SuperRaceTruck Team. After a stint in the V8 Star series he began working for the Atkins Team in 2002 and became European Champion with Stuart Oliver. Last year Stefan Honens constructed one of the three MAN RaceTrucks with the Common Rail engines that were deployed for the first time. And such a vehicle the team will now construct for Jochen Hahn. As team boss Diana Hahn said: “For us the engagement of Stefan Hones was an auspicious occasion”.