Sunday in Donington

24. April 2011Donington - Even though on Easter Sunday the temperatures were no longer as high as before, Donington Park again attracted a huge crowd – exact figures won’t be available before Monday. Already during the warm-up in the morning the favourites – the eight fastest pilots – were separated by one second only. In this “preliminary canter” Jochen Hahn (GER) in his MAN was even one thousandths quicker than the fastest driver in the following crucial timed practice, the Swiss pilot Markus Bösiger (Renault). And again the times the top ten clocked did hardly differ. MAN pilot Matthew Summerfield (GBR), Saturday’s stunner, did not make it into the super pole this time. Yesterday the Brit in his so-called B-MAN had clearly outpaced the two A-MAN pilots Stuart Oliver (GBR) and Alex Lvov (RUS). But this time the two yellow MAN trucks secured 9th and 10th position, resp., on the starting grid. Again Renault pilot Markus Oestreich (GER) found himself on pole, although his margin was not as wide as the day before. Buggyra pilot David Vrsecky (CZE) secured the spot alongside the German, ahead of Hahn, Bösiger, the two MAN drivers Antonio Albacete (ESP) and Uwe Nittel (GER) as well as the Czech pilot Adam Lacko (Renault) and the Englishman Chris Levett (Buggyra Freightliner). This group of six was split by merely 4 tenths, which is another proof that many competitors are almost on the same level.
Right from the rolling start pole setter Oestreich used his pole position starting slot to good effect and – same as yesterday – took a lead he was never to lose. Hahn outgunned Vrsecky and defended his second position right to the end of the race. The Czech stayed close behind the German, and already at that early state you knew who would take the 3 podium places, because considering the current balance in the performance of the top pilots, unforeseen things would only happen if one of the drivers let his guard down or made a mistake. And this applies particularly to a circuit like the one in Donington where the pilots have to drive in high gear almost all the time and where they have to take a lot of passages at full throttle, so that a passing move in a normal duel is almost impossible to undertake.
Accordingly, Bösiger, Albacete and Nittel had a rather uneventful race and finished in 4th, 5th, and 6th position, respectively. Lacko’s truck had suffered some turbo problem early in the race which forced the Czech to retire. His 7th position was taken by his French MKR Team 14 Juniors colleague Anthony Janiec. Behind him a battle was going on that brought the crowds to their feet – the fight between the “perennial rivals” Oliver and Levett. Over and over again the Buggyra pilot mounted an attack on Oliver, but the experienced driver fended off all passing attempts no matter whether from right or left. Apparently that was going too far for several stewards, at least it was announced that Levett incurred a drive-through penalty which, however, was ignored by the young Brit, so that it was already obvious at the finish line that Levett would lose his 9th position to Lvov and Summerfield would get the last point in 10th.

Later it was said that even the black flag had been shown, i.e. disqualification, but the stewards didn’t know anything about that. Long after the victory ceremony it was announced that the list of results was meaningless anyway, as several drivers were going to be penalised. There was no change for the two first-placed drivers, but Vrsecky as well as his team mate Levett and Bösiger, too, incurred a 10-second penalty for overspeed, so that Albacete was classified 3rd ahead of Nittel; both Vrsecky and Bösiger were relegated two positions, dropping them to 5th and 6th, respectively. For the rest of the field there was no change, except for Levett, who incurred another time-penalty of 60 seconds, dropping him to 17th position.
Oliver, who had finished the first race in 8th position, was now on pole, ahead of Janiec. The second row was taken by Bösiger and Vrsecky, and Hahn and Oestreich lined up on the fourth row, with the rest of the top pilots located in between, which justified the hope that this race would become an exciting one, but actually it exceeded all expectations. Right on the first corner it got rather busy and the one who suffered most was Janiec who dropped back several places. Oliver was still heading the field, but got under constant attack from Bösiger and only a few metres behind him was a chasing pack led by Nittel. You should have thought that it was only a matter of time before Oliver was overtaken by the faster pilot Bösiger, but the Englishman was clearly not willing to concede. But when at last the Swiss saw a chance to overtake, the hard-charging Nittel forced him to swerve, so that the Renault pilot dropped back several places. Meanwhile Hahn had closed in on Nittel and Oliver, and a bit later succeeded in passing both opponents. Now the two Germans had gained an impressive lead and crossed the finish line completely unchallenged in 1st and 2nd position, respectively. But for the 3rd podium place and the other points-collecting places there was still a fierce battle going on. Albacete had to give up because of a mechanical problem; Bösiger was again breathing down Oliver’s neck, followed by Vrsecky and Oestreich. And again the Swiss pilot tried to pass the Brit who, in turn, forced the Renault pilot onto the outer track. Vrsecky seized this opportunity to pass the Swiss on the inner track. A short time later, Bösiger, who had lost some momentum, was also overtaken by his team mate Oestreich. Oliver’s truck had slowed down and was peu à peu overtaken by several other pilots.
Meanwhile Oestreich had left Vrsecky behind, too, and was trying to reel in the leading twosome. But Hahn and Nittel were already too far ahead, and despite clocking fastest lap times all the time he had to be satisfied with 3rd position. Vrsecky finished unchallenged in 4th, far ahead of Bösiger with Levett in tow. The Englishman had nonchalantly taken advantage of the constant mayhem and worked his way up to 6th place from the back of the grid. And Lacko gave a top performance, too. He had to start from the back of the grid because of his early retirement due to mechanical problems in the first race. He had already managed to fight his way up into the points positions, when shortly before the finish of the race the gremlins were at work again.
Behind Levett the MAN pilots Mika Makinen (FIN), Oliver and Zoltan Birnbauer (HUN) were the ones to take the remaining points.
During the victory ceremony there was nobody who could really recall whether in the FIA ETRC there has ever before been an all-German podium.
In the overall ranking Oestreich is now leading with 51 points, ahead of Nittel (39), Albacete (37), Hahn (30), Vrsecky (25) and Bösiger (19).
In the team ranking both races were won by MKR-Technology (Bösiger / Oestreich). In the first race Cepsa Trucksport Lutz Bernau (Albacete / Nittel) was in second position, followed by Buggyra (Vrsecky / Levett). In the second race the two teams swapped places.

Impressions: