Sunday in Zolder – part 2

23. September 2012Zolder - Before the first race on Sunday it looked like as if it was going to rain – but it stayed dry. Pole setter Albacete took the lead immediately and was followed by Hahn and the MKR-triarchy Bösiger, Lacko and Oestreich. Like pearls on a string all four of them finished the race in the same order. In the last third of the race Hahn kept trying to attack the frontrunner Albacete, but he never had a real chance to pass him. Between the MKR drivers the order was soon determined, so that the places on the podium soon became clear. The battle over the second half of the top ten was more exciting to watch. While the decision over who will place 6th between Lacheze and Reinert was being decided in favor of the Frenchman, the battle over the 8th place (which would mean the pole position for the last race) was harder. Shortly before the finish of the race Mäkinen was able to snatch away the 8th place from the Frenchman Jeremy Robineau (MAN). Janiec placed 10th, but the race officials gave him a 30-second penalty for overrunning a penalty marker. That way the Czech Frankie Vojtisek (MAN) placed 10th. In the last race it got intense right from the beginning. Many people watching the race did not think that the finish would look the same as the official final result. Mäkinen used his pole position and took the lead immediately. Lacko and Lacheze clashed with each other, but the Czech was able to keep driving despite a totally demolished foreside of his truck. Lacheze did a 360 and therefore lost a lot of ground. Bösiger had a fabulous start and was able to make up some places until he was hit by the twirling Lacheze. Then he crashed into the guardrail backwards and it took him along time to turn his race truck around. Afterwards the Swiss tried to catch up on the group, but his Renault was wrecked and in the end he had to be satisfied with placing 13th. After the first lap the group of truck racers had been mixed up a lot. Oestreich was behind Mäkinen on the second place and followed by Lacko, Hahn and Albacete. Then the second exciting part of the race began: First Lacko passed Oestreich, who had apparently lost speed, because he was not able to defend his position against Hahn’s and Albacete’s attacks. During the 5th lap Lacko took over the lead and Hahn was also able to pass Mäkinen in his lee side. These two immediately pulled clear of the other drivers, because Mäkinen (who was obviously slower) had a fight with Albacete over the third place and this took several laps. This was also exciting to watch for everyone. Not until the round before last, the Spaniard was able to pass the Fin, but Lacko and Hahn had such a big advantage that Albacete had no chance to still catch up on them. Oestreich placed 5th and the others followed in this order: Reinert, Janiec, Vrsecky, Vojtisek and Lacheze. The race ended at approximately 5:30 p.m.
At six o’ clock the race commission started to hear the drivers and analyzing the videos. Afterwards people made several complaints and announced protests. At around 8 p.m. it became clear that all the observers that had expected drastic penalties were wrong, because in the end the results stayed the same. Mäkinen was the only one who received a fine of 1,000 € due to unsporting behavior – after crossing the finish line.
In the overall rating Hahn was able to maintain his lead with 430 points ahead of Albacete with 411, Lacko with 274, Oestreich with 266, Vrsecky with 244 and Bösiger with 216 points. The only woman in this race, Ellen Lohr (GER) was very unlucky. After the start of the race she was on position number 11 and the entire tankpool24-Team got its hopes up that she might place in the top ten. But soon the transmission started to give her a hard time and after half of the race was over she precautionally turned into the pit lane. There had been no official number of spectators released in the evening, but the press office estimated 10 to 11,000 spectators.

Impressions: