Sunday in Nogaro Part 1
16. June 2013Nogaro - The truck racers woke up to clear skies and bright sunshine on this, the second day of the third round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship at the Circuit Paul Armagnac in Nogaro. It was already 25°C when the warm-up began, but the racers went about their business in rather cool and laid-back fashion. The two MKR Renault pilots Markus Bösiger (SUI) and Adam Lacko (CZE), who had barely begun yesterday`s first race before they crashed out with severe damage, were back on track, both literally and figuratively.
Their mechanics worked till late in the evening to repair their trucks, so the two have not really been able to put down any race laps yet. That`s why, perhaps, they`ve appeared to be more eager to prove that they and their Renaults are in full form — and the mechanics have evidently done a great job. Bösiger drove the second-best time behind the Hungarian Norbert Kiss (MAN), and Lacko was only a tad slower.
The results of the warm-up aren`t indicative of true performance capability, though — but of course. In the timed practice that followed the drivers lapped significantly faster, Spaniard Albacete topping the timesheet followed very closely by his MAN colleagues Kiss, Jochen Hahn, and Markus Oestreich (both GER), Bösiger, and David Vršecký (CZE) in his Buggyra Freightliner, only eight-tenths of a second covering this leading sextet. The surprise winner of yesterday`s second race, Hungarian rookie Benedek Major (MAN), Lacko, René Reinert (GER), and the Finn Mika Mäkinen (both MAN) were the other qualifiers, in that order, for the SuperPole.
It`s no holds barred in this showdown — and Albacete duly set his stamp on the session, going 8/10ths quicker for a lap of 1:52.369, the fastest of the day. Hahn showed he had the pace to match, securing second place on the grid beside the Spaniard. Vršecký managed to go a whole second quicker, leapfrogging Oestreich, Kiss, and Bösiger. Lacko qualified seventh, followed by Reinert, Major, and Mäkinen.
Supported by Meritor Translation: Eliot Lobo
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