Saturday in Zolder – Part 1

22. September 2012Zolder - It rained during the night and therefore the race track was wet in the morning. Thus, the first free practice of the 9th race of the FIA European Truckracing Championship in Zolder was not really informative. It took Markus Oestreich (GER) and his MKR-Renault indeed 34 seconds longer than the fastest driver, Antonio Albacete from Spain. The transmission on Mathew Summerfield’s (UK) truck failed and after he had stopped at an extremely dangerous spot of the race track the race was stopped.
The 6 minutes that were left would be added up to the time of the second free practice one hour later. This time the lap times were 15 seconds faster and the German MAN driver and title holder Jochen Hahn was in the lead. In the meantime the temperatures had gone up to 15 C°, which was comfortable and in the sun it was even warmer. The Swiss Markus Bösiger did not benefit from the better weather conditions because during the first timed practice his brake disks broke. In the end he was left with the 19th place in the starting grid. His teammate Adam Lacko also could not drive his usual speed and he barely placed 10th. Thus, the Renault driver just barely made it into the top ten of the SuperPole. Hahn was the fastest one ahead of MAN driver Norbert Kiss (HUN) and Dominique Lacheze (FRA). Buggyra Freightliner driver David Vrsecky (CZE) placed 4th ahead of Albacete and Oestreich. The places 7-9 went to the German driver René Reinert, the Fin Mika Mäkinen (both MAN) and the Renault driver Anthony Janiec (FRA). During the SuperPole it was a case of now or never, at this point the gambling was over and some top drivers actually did improve significantly. With 1:56.701 minutes Hahn was the fastest driver and won the Pole for the first race. The order of the drivers that came after him altered significantly. Albacete placed 2nd ahead of Lacko, Oestreich, Vrsecky, Kiss, Janiec, Mäkinen and Lacheze.

Impressions: