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Saturday at the Ring

Saturday at the Ring

09. July 2011Nürburgring - Heavy winds rattled the tents and banners, but the strong July sun broke through the dense cloud cover time and again, so that nobody felt cold – and, most important, it stayed dry all day. During the warm- up early this morning – at 8:30 hrs – the usual suspects took the lead again. The fastest pilot, MAN driver Uwe Nittel (GER) was only 1 second quicker than fellow German Gerd Körber (IVECO), who clocked eighth fastest time.
But it was clearly evident that nobody would lay his cards on the table before the start of first race. And of course the current front-runner in the overall standing, Jochen Hahn (GER) in his black MAN, didn’t let anyone get the better of him. With an impressive start-finish victory – and he appeared to be even more predominant than his 5 seconds winning margin revealed – Hahn managed to increase his points tally considerably. But there was some close racing going on in the fight for the remaining podium places. Finally Renault pilot Markus Oestreich (GER) crossed the finish line to take second place, closely followed by Nittel and his team colleague Antonio Albacete. Behind them the two Czech drivers Adam Lacko (Renault) and David Vrsecky (Buggyra Freightliner) were locked in combat, but eventually the Renault pilot brought his truck home in 5th. Local hero Körber had a relatively lonely race in 7th position.
There was some more extremely hard competition in the fights for the positions 8 to 10. Already in a first lap coming-together at the summit of the Mercedes Arena the two Allgäuer MAN pilots Alexander Lvov and Stuart Oliver had lost several places. Markus Bösiger’s Renault suffered a gearbox problem and the Swiss driver dropped back right at the start. The other drivers joining in the fight were Buggyra pilot Chris Levett (GBR) and the French pilot Antony Janiec (Renault). Janiec was constantly lying in 8th place, a position that is highly coveted because it means pole position in the second race. While chasing hard after the Frenchman, the pack behind him got constantly into battles against each other, a thing Janiec rather benefitted from. In the penultimate lap Bösiger managed to ease away a bit from his opponents and mounted an attack on Janiec. Actually, the Swiss driver was a lot faster and started to overtake Janiac on the inside track, but suddenly the Frenchman made a blocking move and the two trucks collided. Bösiger’s truck spun round, while Janiec drove on unharmed and crossed the finish line in 8th position. Bösiger was passed by his three nearest chasers, but he in turn succeeded in overtaking Lvov and Oliver almost at once. Finally Levett came in 9th and Bösiger had to be satisfied with 1 point for 10th. Later Janiec incurred a 30 second penalty for ignoring a drive-through penalty so that Levett was upgraded to 8th position – which meant pole position in the second race – and Bösiger and Lvov were classified 9th and 10th, respectively.
Steffi Halm, one of the most sought-after pilots at the Truck Grand Prix, was out of luck. Towards the end of the race her tankpool24 Mercedes suffered a major gearbox failure. The truck had to be towed away and the gear box had to be replaced. As there was not enough time to complete the necessary change in time for the start of the second race, the young Swabian could not participate.
In the second race – with the eight top-finishers lining up on the grid in reverse order – Gerd Körber put a lot of pressure on pole setter Levett right from the start. In lap 3 the two “fighting cocks” were locked together wheel-to-wheel and suddenly they collided. Körber’s right-hand rear wheel suffered a puncture and he dropped back to 8th position, and later on even to 11th. But Levett couldn’t enjoy his leading position for long. His team mate Vrsecky was the first to overtake Levett, and later one after another of the chasers passed the Brit who eventually finished in 10th, the last position inside the points, and only one position ahead of Körber.
Vrsecky, who had by now taken the lead, had title holder Albacete glued to his rear bumper with Nittel in tow. The Czech was under permanent pressure from Albacete, but finally could no longer fend off the attacks from the Spaniard; however, he resisted all attempts by the German to overtake and brought his truck home in 2nd. Now all podium places were determined, although Oestreich tried all the time to pass Nittel, but finally had to make do with the unrewarding 4th position. In mid-race Hahn passed Lacko, but could not pull clear of the Renault pilot. He crossed the finish line only 5 tenths of a second ahead of Lacko. Bösiger, Oliver and Lvov finished in 7th, 8th and 9th position, resp.
The stewards saw Mat Summerfield (GBR) as being the cause of a crash and he was disqualified accordingly. But in the following race of the Mittelrhein Cup the MAN pilot came out the winner which certainly more than compensated for the disqualification. Körber took runner-up place and the British driver David Jenkins (MAN) finished third, so that the three Germans, Mercedes Benz pilots Heinz-Werner and Sascha Lenz, and Johannes Stuck (MAN) had to settle for the unrewarding positions 4 to 6 in the huge field of 24 trucks.
With a total of 226 points Hahn could further extend his lead, followed by Albacete (171), Oestreich (144), Nittel (132), Lacko (121), Vrsecky (115), and Bösiger (98).
In both races the team ranking was won by Cepsa-Trucksport Lutz Bernau (Albacete / Nittel). In the first race MKR-Technology (Bösiger / Oestreich) was in second position, followed by Buggyra (Vrsecky / Levett); in the second race the two teams swapped places.

Impressions:

Saturday at the Ring
Saturday at the Ring
Saturday at the Ring
Saturday at the Ring
Saturday at the Ring