Most – This and That
17. September 2012There were 5 weeks between the races in Smolensk and the 8th race of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship in Most, Czech Republic and everyone was excited to see if Mario Kress (nine-time titleholder and most successful constructor of race trucks and truckracing manager) would be able to close the gap between his MKR Renaults and the two MAN from Jochen Hahn (GER) and Antonio Albacete (ESP). At this point the gap has definitely become smaller but it has not been closed yet. The best ones in the overall rating are still setting the standard, even if it is not as obvious anymore as in the first half of the season. At MKR they don’t hide the fact that they know they do not have a chance anymore when it comes to the awarding of the title. Concerning the development work, the team is already thinking about the year 2013. That is why it is also clear that the contract of cooperation between MKR and Renault, which was originally set for 3 years, will be extended.
The MAN drivers from Germany and Spain will decide between themselves who is going to win the title. The title holder Jochen Hahn and the three time champion Albacete are competing on the knife’s edge. Concerning technique and the way they drive they are on the same level and that’s why even small mistakes or just luck and bad luck can be decisive. For Hahn it was all the more important that when he had bad luck in the race on Saturday (when he was pushed back to the end of the field, after his finish brand mate Mika Mäkinen had spun around) that he was able to make it all the way back to the top and pass 15 rivals until he placed 4th in the end. The man from Altensteig, Germany, this way only lost 3 points to the winner Albacete – it could have been easily 10 points.
On Sunday evening he could drive home as the leader of the overall rating. Especially the German fans among the 80,000 spectators were really happy about this and the rest cheered for the Czech David Vrsecky who was the winner of the final race. The second Buggyra Freightliner with the guest pilot Michal Matejowsky left a positive impression, but the son of the former European Champion, Stan Matejowsky, knows the Autodrom in Most from the inside out. The German Gerd Körber in his Iveco, who was the other race-by-race driver, was even more successful than Matejowsky. “Mr. Truckracing” has 24 years of experience and made it extremely hard for the other leading drivers. After the Truck Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, he again was able to stand on the podium. For the privately run Schwabentruck-Team, which had only planned for 4 races this season, this was a great result. Their next race will be the final race in Le Mans. Another privately run team, the MB-Motorsport-Team, was not satisfied with their race weekend. Unfortunately it didn’t help that Ellen Lohr, a rather popular driver, sat behind the steering wheel of the tankpool24-Mercedes. This race truck is rather old and has less horse power than most of the trucks’ from the rivals. However, Lohr was able to earn some points, but in Most it should have been some more. After there had been some technical problems on Saturday, the team decided on Sunday not to compete. The risk of experiencing a major damage was simply too high. The Belgian Jean-Pierre Blaise also had to deal with major technical issues on Saturday. The transmission of his truck failed, but his team almost had all spare parts except a pinion rod. That’s when the old “truckracing family feeling” came up again, but the spares in the paddock did not fit, because of different pinions. Lutz Bernau found a spare part that would fit, but that was some 100 km away and would only have arrived in Most on Sunday at four in the morning the earliest. The head of MKR, Mario Kress, wanted to have a complete spare transmission sent to him from his work shop around 100 km away when the head of the Schwabentruck Team, Schorsch Glöckler, finally found a spare part that fit. On Sunday morning the Renault was at the starting line as if nothing had happened and some old-timers were reminded of the good old days of truckracing.
P.S: We received some emails concerning the list of results of the last race on Sunday. This race consisted of 2 parts and in the end the times of both parts were added together and only the overall times are being published – and not as usual – the margin between those that placed and the winner.
Impressions:
