Friday in Nogaro

18. June 2010Nogaro - While during the last few days the department Gers was constantly hit by at times heavy rain showers – but certainly not comparable to the flash floods in the Var region further to the east – the weather looked promising on Friday morning. During the press drivings and the following additional free practice there was even bright sunshine for a while. Then the first official free practice started and so did the rain. Soon big parts of the Circuit Armagnac were several centimetres under water; for some time more trucks were off-track than were on-track, and the race had to be stopped.
Later only 5 pilots returned to the soaking wet track to continue their practice. At the second free practice there were again some dark clouds, but it stayed dry. However, the tarmac was still extremely slippery; yet the 20 minutes practice went relatively smoothly; only the truck of European champion David Vrsecky spun once. But they were 8 – 9 seconds slower than those pilots who were lucky enough to clock their lap times when the track was still dry in the first practice. The Spaniard Antonio Albacete clocked fastest time, followed by his German MAN colleague Jochen Hahn and the Czech David Vrsecky in his Freightliner. Vrsecky’s German team mate Uwe Nittel – for whom it will be the second round in a Buggyra Freightliner – qualified 5th fastest time. But it was not alone the fact that the two MKR Renault pilots Markus Oestreich (GER) and Markus Bösiger (SUI) – who are both title contenders – were lagging far behind in 8th and 13th place, respectively, that raised some doubt about the significance of the results.
And indeed, in the second practice – under equal conditions for everybody – the results were quite different. Now the two Renault pilots were far ahead – Bösiger posted fastest time and Oestreich qualified 2nd fastest time – followed by Albacete, Hahn and Vrsecky. Nittel again clocked a top ten lap time (9th place), and it would not really come as a surprise if tomorrow in the timed practice the TruckRace rookie qualified for the SuperPole. Anyway, certainly everybody takes these results with a grain of salt because of the adverse conditions. Vrsecky’s spin right at the start of the season has probably caused the one or other pilot to drive a little more carefully. And what really counts is the first timed practice tomorrow morning.