Saturday in Misano – part 2

19. May 2012Misano - In the first race of the weekend Hahn already made clear at the starting line that he is currently the best in the truck racing business. He easily took the lead and drove towards a start – finish victory. His 1.9 second advantage over Albacete did not only reflect his preeminence of how he dominated the race, but the fight over the 3rd place was a pure MKR – Renault duel. During this race Bösiger slid straight ahead in the first curve and in the second one he completely went off the track. The Swiss assumed that his brake disk broke. Then Lacko tried to win the 3rd place before Oestreich could do so. But the guy from Fulda (Germany) took third place on the podium before Lacko and Vrsecky drove over the finish line. Now that it was obvious who was going to have what place, a hefty fight broke out over the scoring points that were left: Lacheze placed 6th who was able to pass Janiec only a few laps before the end of the race. The fight over the 8th place was even fiercer, because this rank is the Pole for the second race. In the end Mäkinen won before Köber. Jeremy Robineau (French) placed 10th which is the last scoring point. Having the Pole in the second race did not bring the Fin good luck. In the beginning Janiec already took the lead before him and two laps later he had to give up due to technical problems. However, the Frenchman was not able to keep competing with the ones racing in front. Lap after lap he fell back and eventually placed 7th. Until the second last lap Oestreich, Hahn, Albacete, Lacko and Bösiger (the last one to join the race) formed a row behind Vrsecky when suddenly a change of events occurred. Hahn received a drive - through penalty and he connected it with the finish line. However, the race officials did not like that and put him in 13th place. All drivers that had been behind the MAN – driver moved up one place. Janiec was one of the ones who moved up one place, but he also received a 30 – second penalty which put him back in 11th place. Lacheze, Körber, MAN – driver René Reinert (GER), Robineau and the Belgian Jean – Pierre Blaise (Renault) were ranked behind Bösiger in scoring points. However, the distribution of penalties was not over. About 45 minutes after the finish they finally announced the final results: Lacheze and Blaise also received a 30 – second penalty, leading to the fact that Körber, Reinert and Robineau each driver moved one place up in ranking and Janiec ended up in 10th place again, and received the last point. Everyone was excited to see Ellen Lohr (GER). The tankpool24 – Mercedes from MB – Motorsport drove his first test laps in Misano during the first free training. That is why the team had rather ambivalent feelings. On the one hand they were happy that the Mercedes – Benz drove as they hoped it would, but on the other hand they would have wished for her to be closer to the actual competition – even if this distance constantly narrowed in the course of the day. In the end Ellen Lohr placed 12th and 13th. In the championship ranking Hahn leads with 80 points and the other drivers achieved the following points: Albacete (70), Oestreich (55), Lacko (53), Vrsecky (38) and Bösiger (26).In both cases MKR – Technology won in the team ranking. In the first race Blaise/Bouzige Truck Racing was ahead of Pneu Bösiger – Team 14 and in the second race they switched places.

Impressions: