Sunday on the Ring

13. July 2008Nürburgring - Despite the contrary weather during the first two days there were again almost 200,000 fans – 192,000 to be exact – at the Ring. But today there was no reason to complain about the weather, it stayed dry and now and then even the sun was shining. By the way, there were no further news in regard to the incidents on Saturday. As previously reported – Antonio Albacete (MAN) incurred a fine because of his attack on Stuart Oliver, and now he had to assume that the stewards would watch him like hawks during the races.
It could have become the weekend of Markus Bösiger. On Saturday he managed relatively unchallenged to score the maximum of 30 points, and today, on Sunday, it seemed for a long time that the Swiss Buggyra pilot would repeat this triumph. But in the end it was Jochen Hahn (MAN) who was showered with honours.
In the morning Bösiger was in best form during the warm-up as well as the timed practice. Both times he clocked absolute best times. With 1:54.237 he grabbed pole ahead of his team mate David Vrsecky, Hahn, Albacete and Jean-Philippe Belloc (MAN).
The following Qualy race proceeded more orderly than hardly ever before. Bösiger took the lead right from the start, followed by Vrsecky, Hahn and Albacete. But unlike in all the previous races, this time the two Buggyra Freightliner pilots did not succeed in leaving their chasers behind. Quite the contrary – for a long time it seemed as if Hahn could even challenge the Czech for the 2nd place, but eventually Vrsecky finished some 3 seconds ahead of the German. And with a difference of another 2 seconds Albacete crossed the finish line. Behind those four, who all finished nose to tail, Belloc drove rather unchallenged and came home 5th. The remaining positions for the points were achieved by the two Renault pilots Markus Altenstrasser and Frankie Vojtisek, as well as Dominique Lacheze, Chris Levett (both MAN) and Anthony Janiec.
The final Championship race was a sort of replication of the Qualy race. Bösiger again took the lead right from the start, ahead of Vrsecky, Hahn, and Albacete. After 7 laps the Swiss had a comfortable advantage, and everybody expected Bösiger to get again the maximum points of 30, but just then Bösiger got a drive-through penalty. He dropped behind considerably, but fought his way up and finished in 5th. So Vrsecky came out the winner, followed by Hahn, Albacete and Belloc. The toughest fight was going on for 6th place which left its mark on all the trucks involved. Egon Allgäuer could fend off all the attacks from Altenstrasser, Stuart Oliver (MAN) and Levett, and crossed the finish line with an advantage of just half a second. On 10th, the last place for the points, was again Janiec.
After the race there were the discussions about Bösiger’s penalty. At the rolling start the GPS system had indicated 70.2 km/h for polesetter Bösiger – a speed between 50 and 70 is mandatory. But later the evaluation of the telemetry data revealed that both Buggyra trucks had been driving at a speed of not more than 62 km/h, when the traffic light for the start turned green. Such a situation is without precedent so far. Then the Buggyra technicians, by doing some exemplary calculations, came to the result that the GPS system used here seemed not to meet the requirements because of its apparently insufficient measurement frequency cycle. And there could be yet another smaller source of error caused by the hand start of the measuring system. As a consequence they arrived at the conclusion that the tolerance limit allowed so far should, strictly speaking, be extended considerably. If true, Bösiger was probably penalized wrongfully.
The race of the Mittelrhein Cup was again to the liking of the fans. The two German motorsport idols, Hans-Joachim Stuck und Heinz-Werner Lenz, had to start from the back of the grid after being disqualified for overspeeding the day before. But they progressed up the field in a breathtaking manner and finished in 5th and 6th, respectively. The winner was Oliver followed by Levett and David Jenkins (MAN).
But the man to attain the greatest honours was Jochen Hahn, although he did not win any of the races. Yesterday the fans celebrated profusely when he was third on the podium. And how many fans he has got and how popular Germany’s presently most successful truck racer is, is reflected in the poll conducted by AutoScout 24 to find out who is the most popular truck racer on the Ring. An overwhelming majority voted for Hahn.
The title “TruckMaster Germany”, that is awarded for some years now and where the results of the weekend’s races are taken into account, was again collected by David Vrsecky.
The team ranking was won by Buggyra (Bösiger/Vrsecky), followed by Team Koller + Schwemmer (Hahn/Belloc) and Team Frankie (Vojtisek/Altenstrasser)
For the first time, and probably non-recurrent, the winners of this weekend’s new Sponsor’s Challenge (newcomers and pilots who where not among the first ten in the overall standing last year) were honoured. On first was Altenstrasser, ahead of Lachèze and Janiec. But afterwards Lachèze incurred a time penalty, so that eventually Jean-Pierre Blaise (MAN) gained 3rd place on the podium.
In the championship standing Vrsecky is still leading with 232 points, ahead of Albacete (216), Bösiger (210), Hahn (167) and Belloc (140).