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Nogaro – Preliminary Report

Nogaro – Preliminary Report

14. June 2011Between the round in Albacete / Spain and the event in Nogaro in the south of France there is generally only one free weekend so that more and more teams are happy to accept race director André Divies’ offer to park their vehicles in the supervised paddock of the Circuit Paul Armagnac. However, if there are major repair works waiting to be dealt with or when some teams think that it may be necessary to further improve their RaceTrucks, they have to undertake the often time consuming and cost-intensive journey back home to their repair shops – as for instance the Czech-German MKR Renault Team. But on the other hand team boss Mario Kress and his guys had already treated themselves to a short break and spent a few days on the beach of the Adriatic Sea in Italy after the second round in Misano, before they went on to Spain. That’s why – regardless of the results in Albacete – another short holiday had never been on the agenda. And it’s far from likely that Kress is fully satisfied with the results of the third round of the FIA ETRC.
And there were some more people who had not really been very pleased with the outcome in Albacete, and one of them was certainly local hero Antonio Albacete. Jochen Hahn, however, after all Albacete’s MAN-internal opponent, is currently riding on an absolute wave of success. But the Swabian is realistic enough to know how fast his lucky streak can be over. And Hahn says over and over again that he did not intend to rest on his laurels, and that he wanted to improve himself further, because his rivals never rest either. In addition, during the breaks between the ETRC events there are quite a lot of advertising promotions on the agenda for the man from Altensteig. And because of his current success he and his RaceTruck will certainly be in even greater demand. Considering that early in December last year at the Essen Motorshow the Hahn Team didn’t even know whether they would be able to get the financial means necessary to participate in all the rounds of the 2011 season, this is an almost unbelievable development.
In Nogaro – and that’s what everybody is in agreement about – the cards will be shuffled anew. In the MKR Team Markus Bösiger is certainly the “problem child” no. 1 at present. The performances of the Swiss pilot – last year’s vice-champion – couldn’t live up to expectations so far. His colleague Markus Oestreich is at the moment much more successful in coping with the Renault RaceTruck; the German pilot is on a level with Albacete. And even his junior colleague and Renault newcomer Adam Lacko (CZE) is often a bit quicker than the 2007 European champion.
On the circuit in the sleepy little town situated in the Department of Gers, where during the ETRC event the visitors outnumber the inhabitants by almost 10 to 1, all title contenders have already achieved successes – but suffered failures, too. But for Steffi Halm the track is totally unfamiliar. For the German pilot – the only lady in the FIA European Truck Racing Championship – it’s the second time she will be taking part in a round of the ETRC. The private Mercedes Benz Team of Markus Bauer had to cope with massive technical problems, because, as is well known, the world’s largest producer of commercial vehicles doesn’t supply any support for truck racing at present.
After the mammoth drivers’ field in the previous round, in Nogaro the number of entrants will be back to its normal size. There are only three race-by-race pilots registered – Cees Zandbergen from the Netherlands and the two Spaniards David Felipe Plaza and Javier Mariezcurrena. But the latter managed to muscle in when the points were distributed in Albacete, and as the northern Spanish building contractor with his blue MAN knows the circuit in Nogaro quite well, he will probably snatch away the one or other point from some of the FIA pilots.
For the three-day event – in Nogaro they start already on Friday with the press demonstration and the two free practice sessions – the weather forecasts differ widely from a brilliant blue sky to scattered light rain showers. However, in the last few days we could learn that the weather across the Pyrenees does seldom comply with the predictions.

Impressions:

Nogaro – Preliminary Report
Nogaro – Preliminary Report