Zolder – This and That

14. September 2010After a relatively dreary Friday – caused by the weather – the weekend in Zolder turned out to be a highly interesting event, especially in sporting terms. Although in the free practice the Renault of Team 14 packed up after only a few metres – after suffering engine failure which was impossible to fix on site – the dominance of the two MKR Technology Renaults was almost alarming. But Antonio Albacete seems to remain totally indifferent to this and cleverly avoids any bigger risks. The Spaniard in his glaring red MAN is 43 points ahead of the Swiss driver Markus Bösiger and is still the top championship candidate. His MAN colleague Jochen Hahn, before the Zolder round the closest rival of the Madrilenian, struck a bad patch this weekend – while Saturday could be called grey, Sunday was jet black. In the timed practice on a soaking wet track there was no way for him to gather momentum and he clocked the worst lap time by a mile. With the tyres the German had chosen he was way off beam. In the race Hahn made a great charge through the pack and was already in the points ranking when he skidded off the still slippery tarmac and into the gravel bed – and out of the points, contrary to the two MKR Renault trucks. Already on Saturday – on a dry track – the two pilots scored a lot of points, but their performance on Sunday under the unfavourable conditions had a jaw-dropping effect on their opponents.
Particularly in the final race the two ‘Markusses’ – Bösiger from Switzerland and Oestreich from Germany – really showed their rivals up. People probably wonder what the outcome would have been like if Bösiger’s truck had not suffered a damaged brake disc in the preceding race.
Afterwards Mario Kress probably pondered over the question how many additional points his two drivers would have collected had there been more ‘rainy’ races. But the German team boss is long enough in the truck racing business not to let the words “would have”, “if” and “would be” linger in his brain for long.
But the main topic for all teams was the time penalties collected for overspeed. In Most Bösiger incurred a time penalty, although MKR Technology stated that they could prove on the basis of their data recording that the Renault with the number 4 never exceeded the speed limit of 160 km/h. Last week in Zolder this happened to four top pilots, the Czech title holder David Vrsecky (Buggyra Freightliner) and the three MAN pilots Albacete, Hahn and Chris Levett (GBR).
None of the teams could comprehend the GPS measurements of ERTF. Since 2002 the French company is responsible for the surveillance of the speed limit in the European truck racing series, and time and again the official measurements and those of the teams differed. In several reports on this WebPortal it was stated that under certain conditions this GPS measurements might not work as precisely as required. Now team insiders suggested in Zolder that Albacete’s measured maximum speed had even been 167 km/h. Yet the time penalty the Spaniard collected was ‚only’ 10 seconds which did not cost him any points because he had won by a wide margin. This would mean that his ‘offence’ had lasted between one and four seconds – according to FIA regulations:
“For a 1st infraction:
Speeding for longer than (1 second or) 4 GPS pulses:
The driver will have 10 seconds added to his race time;
Speeding for a period of 5 or 6 seconds:
The driver will have 20 seconds added to his race time;
Speeding for a period of 7 seconds:
The driver will have 30 seconds added to his race time;
Speeding for a period of 8 seconds or more:
The driver will be excluded from the race.
For a second infraction, the time penalties will be added to the first. For a third infraction, the driver will be excluded from the race.”
It would be technically feasible to increase the speed of the 5.5 ton truck from the legal 160 km/h up to 167 km and then slow down back to 160 km in less than 4 seconds, but this is virtually highly impossible. And the responsible people in the team deny vehemently that Albacete had been overspeeding at all. And also Hahn, Levett and Vrsecky stated that their own data recording revealed nothing that indicated overspeed.
The teams’ technicians responsible for the telemetry often complain that they don’t get any access to the ERTF measuring method. But those people who engaged themselves with the shortcomings of the GPS system know for sure that additional efforts are necessary in order to get more precise data.
And the more satellites are available, the more exact are the measurements. That’s what every motorist owning a navigation system knows. But – as rumour had it in Zolder – only 3 satellites could be located there, which is the minimum number required to take 2D measurements in the first place. This would be enough for car drivers to arrive at their destinations more or less problem-free, but it’s barely sufficient to exactly measure speeds of around 160 km/h – which is more than 44 metres per second.