Sunday in Le Mans

21. September 2008Le Mans - The second racing day in Le Mans started with temperatures in the single-digit range, too. But there weren’t many people around to notice this. Even when the warm-up of the RaceTrucks began at 8:30, only a few fans were up and about, because it was a short night for most of them. The show last night, the fireworks display, the concert, the funfair, and not least the live bands of some of the teams – those were reasons enough for many people to hit the hay not before the early hours. But even for the late risers among the 46,000 spectators it was not much warmer later on. Despite the cloudless sky and bright sunshine the temperatures seemed not to rise, as there was a constant cold wind.
However, during the warm-up in the morning not only the engines warmed up, but the teams felt a bit warmer, too, because the Buggyras were apparently not that predominant today. Especially the only remaining serious opponent, Antonio Albacete, who yesterday could not come up to the expectations – those of the teams and his own – was in full swing again and managed to edge in between Markus Bösiger and David Vrsecky. And also Jochen Hahn, on fourth position, was not more than 6 hundredths behind the Czech.
This meant we were in for a hot timed practice. And indeed, for a long time Albacete was positioned between the two Buggyras again – but now Vrsecky, who had claim a super time, was in the lead. And Hahn was only some hundredths behind Bösiger on 4th. But in the final lap the Swiss accomplished the feat to clock 2:05.914 exactly the same time as Vrsecky. As the Czech was the first one to post this time, he was entitled to the pole for the Qualy race. This was probably a crucial factor – but in a quite different sense from what the Buggyra team might have thought.
At the start everybody got away well. Vrsecky and Bösiger headed the field driving side by side, followed by Albacete, Hahn and Belloc. The two Buggyras dashed towards the Dunlop chicane neck and neck – Bösiger on the left and Vrsecky on the right. When they entered the first bend of the chicane – a left turn – the Swiss would have had an advantage. But the Czech kept steering to the left, and the two trucks got into a tangle. Vrsecky now steered in the opposite direction and – unfortunately – drove past a stack of tyres on the right instead of on the left. And Bösiger, still alongside the Czech, followed suit like a Siamese twin. After the first lap Vrsecky was slightly ahead of his team mate, who was followed closely by Albacete, Belloc, Hahn and the Austrian Renault pilot Markus Altenstrasser. And in this order they drove until the 5th lap. Because of the incident in the chicane Vrsecky and Bösiger incurred a drive-through penalty. Now Albacete was ahead of Belloc, Hahn, Altenstrasser and the two MAN drivers Chris Levett and Dominique Lachèze – and only then followed Bösiger and Vrsecky. In the penultimate and the final lap the Freightliners only managed to pass Lachèze, and eventually the Swiss finished in 6th and Vrsecky in 7th position. Behind Lachèze the top ten were completed by Anthony Janiec and Frankie Vojtisek (both Renault). But afterwards Vojtisek incurred a 10 second penalty and was now on 11th place behind Egon Allgäuer (MAN).
The start of the Championship race was rather unproblematic. Albacete gladly accepted the “gift” of the pole the two Buggyra pilots had handed to him on a plate, and pulled away at once. Hahn snatched away second place from Belloc, the Buggyras dashed forward almost at a furious rate, passed Levett and Altenstrasser immediately and started to chase Belloc. Of course their aim was to get as close to Albacete as possible. But actually that problem took care of itself in the second lap. The red Cepsa MAN slowed down and came to a stop at the pit wall – a problem with the rail pipe, same as yesterday. Now suddenly the field was led by Hahn, who rates Le Mans among his most favourite circuits. And you could recognize that by watching the man from Altensteig. It took Bösiger two laps to pass Belloc, and after one more lap Vrsecky overtook him, two. At first Hahn managed to keep a distance to Bösiger, but eventually the Swiss who was visibly faster (quickest lap 2:05.987 – only a little bit slower than in the timed practice – around 1 second faster than Hahn and Vrsecky) gained ground and soon was glued to the bumper of the German. But he had no opportunity to pass the black MAN. In the end Hahn came out the winner by a margin of 1 second and advanced to the position of not only the acclaimed winner of the day, but also the most eager points collector of the weekend. Behind Belloc, Levett finished in 5th ahead of Allgäuer, Vojtisek, Altenstrasser, Janiec and Lachèze who gained 10th, the last place for the points.
For the championship this means now: either Vrsecky or Bösiger. The only one left to challenge the Czech for the title is now his Swiss team mate and title holder, who – with 354 points – is 18 points behind. On third is Albacete (312) followed by Hahn (266), Belloc (214) and Altenstrasser (140).
Today the team ranking was won by Team Koller + Schwemmer ahead of Buggyra and Team Frankie.