Albacete – This and That
09. June 2011Contrary to the expectations of the Spanish fans the third round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship in Albacete / Spain did not turn out to be a festival for their local hero Albacte, who – as we would like to point out once more – actually comes from Madrid, but yet the Cepsa MAN pilot knows every corner of the Circuit de Albacete inside and out and could indeed drive blindfold. But that didn’t do him any good; his opponents were simply too strong – first of all another MAN pilot, Jochen Hahn from Altensteig / Swabia. The German pilot currently seems to be the measure of all things in truck racing. In the timed practises and also in the races the German pilot seemed almost poles apart from the other drivers. With three wins and one fourth place he was again the most avid point collector. “Somehow it almost feels a bit creepy!” as the Swabian said on Sunday evening.
However, Albacete had been dogged by bad luck. In the first race on Saturday there was the collision with the German Renault pilot Markus Oestreich, resulting in the Spaniard doing a spectacular pirouette – the incident can be watched in all its glory on www.trucrace.tv / please click “Der Samstag in Albacete” – and later he dropped back to 10th position due to a tyre failure. And in the final race on Sunday, according to the stewards, he caused the leading British pilot Stuart Oliver (MAN) to run wide through the gravel, so that after the victory ceremony – where Albacete had been taking top place honours – he was relegated two positions so that he found himself in 3rd position behind Oliver. The Swiss pilot Markus Bösiger (Renault) suffered a similar fate. The stewards accused him of reckless driving while overtaking Oliver’s MAN. After the race, still in Parc Fermé, Bösiger went to see the Brit to talk about that incident. But – as the MKR Team declared – this had been a fateful decision, because the stewards regarded it as admission of guilt.
Nevertheless the MKR Team decided not to lodge an appeal, although they think that the penalty was unjustified, but they believe that an appeal would have little prospect of success. However, the Cepsa Team briefly considered an appeal – for formal reasons alone. Because – as team manager Ivan Cruz stated after having contacted the Spanish motorsports association for confirmation – relegations as a kind of penalty are not laid down in the FIA regulations; in fact there are only time penalties listed.
Most of the observers, too, considered Bösiger’s and Albacete’s passing moves as rather harmless – compared to some incidents that had taken place in the previous rounds of the FIA ETRC. In the end, however, also the Spanish team refrained from lodging an appeal.
Could it be that the stewards wanted to make an example in Albacete?
People generally deplore the fact that this year – right from the start of the season in Donington – many pilots tend to play hardball, particularly in the second races of the day where the top 8 finishers from race 1 line up on the grid in reverse order.
While some people compare this with stock car racing, others speak of true truck racing. There is a wide difference of opinion in this matter among the pilots and teams, and obviously also among the stewards of the different venues.
And after only three rounds the atmosphere in the truck racing scene is already as strained as it was occasionally in a final round in previous years.
After the spectacular crash in Misano involving Buggyra pilot David Vrsecky (CZE) and the German driver Uwe Nittel (MAN) there were apparently some over-reactions which did nothing to improve the climate in the paddock. In Albacete Nittel and the Lutz Bernau Team again signalled their willingness to look at the data recording of Nittel’s MAN together with the other teams and pilots, in order to prove that at the time of the crash Nittel had entered the bend and applied the brake at exactly the same spot as in all the previous laps.
Regardless of all these circumstances the MKR Renault Team is not really happy about the outcome of the season so far. In the opening round in Donington Markus Oestreich’s glorious performance could not hide the fact that all in all things did not really run smoothly. At the moment, team boss Mario Kress certainly regards Markus Bösiger as his “problem child”. The Swiss driver – who was the winner of the European Championship in 2007 and runner-up in 2010 – sometimes lies a bit behind his opponents and often behind his team mates Oestreich and Adam Lacko, too, at least in the decisive laps in the SuperPole and also in the races. The lap times the Swiss driver clocks are level with the ones he posted last year, while the other pilots could improve their lap times considerably. During the tests in Most it was completely different. There the Swiss more often than not set the quickest lap times and, in addition, was more than 2 seconds faster than the previous year.
Mario Kress wants to make use of the time they have got before the next round in Nogaro to track down this phenomenon. That’s why his team returned to their workshop in the Czech Republic – while other teams went on to Nogaro with their trailers and RaceTrucks, as the management of the French circuit had allowed them to park their valuable possessions in the supervised paddock.
And some of the teams took the opportunity to holiday at the Spanish Mediterranean coast during the break between the two rounds. That’s why the trailer of the Dutch pilot Erwin Kleinnagelvoort was spotted near the marina of La Escala.
Impressions:
