Saturday in Barcelona

04. July 2009Barcelona - Early in the morning it was already blazing hot again, and soon the temperatures soared to over 30 °C (86 °F). Nonetheless the truck racers kept rather cool during the two free practices in the morning, although some of the drivers took to the gravel. And, just like in all the other rounds of this season, the B4 – the two Buggyras with David Vrsecky and Markus Bösiger, and the two MAN pilots Antonio Albacete and Jochen Hahn – set the pace. And, as before, Chris Levett again was on their back. But in the decisive timed practice it was suddenly completely different. In the first quick lap the front runners once again caught up with the back markers of the field consisting of 31 trucks, because apparently the pilots in the upper mid-field were extremely slow in the warm-up lap. The profiteers were Hahn and his MAN colleague Egon Allgäuer. The German had already clocked the fastest lap of the day (1:30.479) and the Austrian was only 3 tenths slower. Albacete wasn’t even among the top 8, Bösiger and Vrsecky were in third and fourth position, respectively. In the second half of the practice session the Spaniard suddenly dashed forward onto the 2nd spot on the grid; then there was a longer break and quite some hecticness in the pit lane. The truck of the Spaniard Orlando Rodriguez had broken down at a rather dangerous spot and had to be towed away. Afterwards the enthusiasm was practically gone. While everybody had already accepted the results, Vrsecky managed to achieve third place on the grid in the penultimate lap; Bösiger could not improve his times.
Allgäuer’s joy about his fourth place on the grid was short-lived, the engine of his truck had to be replaced; a task which could not be completed within the remaining 45 minutes – after the opening of the Parc Fermé. And yet another MAN packed up. Dominique Lachèze had to park his truck in the pit lane after only a few laps in the timed practice due to an engine failure.
Consequently on the grid for the first race the places no. 4 – Allgäuer – and no. 9 – Lachèze – remained vacant. Balazs Szobi lined up alongside Bösiger, and behind them were Stuart Oliver and Frankie Vojtisek.
For the first three pilots the start was according to plan, but behind them there was a frantic scrabble in the first bend with everybody trying to slot into Allgäuer’s ‘vacant’ place. Bösiger got a push from behind, causing him to swerve wide; Szobi’s truck suffered a tyre puncture forcing him to retire after only a few hundred metres and also Vojtisek’s truck dropped way down the field. And suddenly Oliver was in 5th position, followed by Levett (starting place 11) and Altenstrasser (starting place 12). And even José Rodrigues (MAN) und Anthony Janiec (Renault) finished the first lap ahead of Bösiger and Vojtisek.
At the top Hahn and Vrsecky had pulled away a bit from Albacete, while for Bösiger it now meant a lot of work to catch up with the leading pack. Gradually he was charging his way through the field until in mid-race he closed up onto the back of Altenstrasser, who meanwhile had passed Levett. And then the Buggyra pilot but also the observers certainly believed that they were experiencing a sense of déjà vu – try as he might, Bösiger was unable to overtake Altenstrasser, although his Buggyra seemed to be obviously faster than the red Renault. The fight went on for seven laps. Whenever it looked as if the Swiss would succeed in passing, the Austrian always managed to hold off the advances of the Buggyra pilot. When there were only 3 more laps to go, Altenstrasser slowed down considerably and eventually had to park his truck in the La Caixa bend. One lap earlier there was also a change at the top; Vrsecky had succeeded in passing the slightly weakening Hahn and then finished comfortably with an advantage of more than a second. Unchallenged and completely at ease Albacete claimed the third podium place ahead of Oliver. Behind Bösiger, Vojtisek finished in 6th, followed by Anthony Janiec and Levett on 8th – thus securing pole position for the second race. The remaining places in the points were taken by the two MAN pilots José Rodrigues and Alexander Lvov.
Both Allgäuer’s and Lachèze’s teams had completed the installation of the new engine in time for the second race, however, they had to start from the back of the grid. Levett and Janiec lined up on the first row. The Frenchman lost several places right at the start, while Levett got away really well. The top quartet meanwhile tried to pick off the slower drivers, and again Albacete was a lot more successful. Almost effortlessly and trouble-free he had worked his way up to 2nd position ahead of Vojtisek after only 2 laps. Vrsecky, Hahn and Bösiger had yet to manage to overtake the Czech. But after 3 more laps they eventually succeeded. Meanwhile Albacete closed in on Levett. The Brit did not put up much resistance, and the Spaniard now was heading for another win which, however, would be in jeopardy towards the end of the race. But until then his chasers still had a lot of work to do. In the 8th lap Hahn passed Vrsecky, and after one more lap he left Levett behind. And now the German started to reel in Albacete who had pulled away earlier. With an advantage of just a bit more than a tenth the Spaniard crossed the finishing line. Vrsecky, too, had managed to overtake Levett after some more laps, but far behind the winner and the runner-up the Czech managed a third place finish. Bösiger was unable to find a way past Levett until the end of the race and had to be content with fifth position. Behind Vojtisek, Allgäuer – who had charged through from the back of the grid – came home 7th, followed by Janiec, Oliver and Lachèze.
In the team ranking both races were clearly won by Buggyra (Bösiger / Vrsecky) ahead of Team HahnOxxo (Hahn / Szobi). In the first race Team Frankie (Altenstrasser / Vojtisek) was on third; in the second race for the first time the Team Bird´s-Bernau – newly-founded in Barcelona – took the podium.
In the overall ranking Albacete is still leading with 225 points, followed by Vrsecky (205), Bösiger (179), Hahn (143) and Allgäuer (96).
Unfortunately today the internet connection in Barcelona was disrupted time and again, so that the upload of the results and the photos could not be carried out as effectively as usual on „truckracing.de / truckrace.info“.