Saturday at the Red Bull Ring – Part 2

06. July 2013Spielberg - The sun frequently peeked through the cloud cover, so that the temperature stayed comfortably at 25°C – and it remained dry. The start of the first race was a straightforward affair for Albacete. The short, steep uphill stretch of the pit straight ends in a 90° bend, and there the Spaniard, having started on the inside, had the better line than Kiss, who’d started from second. A little later, in the hairpin that leads into the short version of the Red Bull Ring, Hahn got right up next to the Hungarian and snatched second from him. Albacete was able to put some distance between himself and his two pursuers, who fought a knife-edge battle for the next 20 laps, Hahn crossing the finish line a few metres in front. The thankless fourth place went to Oestreich, who’d had Lacko breathing down his neck throughout. They were followed at some remove by Mäkinen and Vršecký, another pair that was locked in combat for every metre of the race. The Buggyra pilot had fallen behind at the start and then fought his way up steadily till he came up behind the impassable Finn, losing out on sixth place by the barest eighteen-hundredths of a second. The Belgian Renault pilot Jean-Pierre Blaise finished eighth, which meant he’d start the second race on pole. Frenchman Anthony Janiec (Renault) and Reinert were the two remaining finishers in the points.
It went ill for Markus Bösiger right from the beginning. In the first curve itself his Renault was hit smack in the windscreen by a bouncing penalty marker that a competitor had knocked over. (This small upright made of plastic, placed on the grass inside of a curve, is supposed to hinder drivers that would “cut corners”.) The glass shattered, and splinters flew into the Swissman’s eyes. Bösiger, unable to see clearly anymore, was forced to give up.
More than an hour after the finish there was a new result. Blaise was handed a 30-second penalty for overspeeding, which dropped him to 12th and promoted Janiec to pole position. Reinert too moved a place up, which handed 10th place and the final point to MAN pilot Stephanie Halm (GER).
Before the start of the second race, a bulletin issued by the race commission required that all the penalty markers be removed. The drivers were reminded that, according to the rules, no truck is allowed to leave the track, defined as the strip of tarmac between the two white lines to the left and right, excluding the kerbs. But this enforced restriction couldn’t help Janiec capitalise on his pole position. Even before the first bend he’d let Lacko overtake him, and then Mäkinen and Kiss in short order. The Frenchman even managed to bring a drive-through penalty on himself, so that all that was left for him at the end was a miserable 15th place.
At the front, Lacko was able to stretch out a gap while Mäkinen and Kiss kept up their skirmish. Albacete drove a comfortable race to fourth, his teammate Oestreich acting as a buffer to the following field, and in particular to Hahn.
It looked like the battle lines were clearly drawn, but then it suddenly got exciting again. Kiss had finally pulled past Mäkinen and set off in hot pursuit of Lacko. In the penultimate lap he was able indeed to overtake the Czech in the 180° curve after the first right-hand bend. But the Renault pilot wasn’t going to take his unexpected relegation lying down, and immediately launched a counterattack. The two trucks tore down the pit straight side by side till Lacko, who was on the inside, was able to make it to the 90° bend a few metres ahead and keep the inside line into the hairpin, which decided the race in his favour. A scarce two seconds behind the leading duo, Mäkinen was kept his nose ahead of Albacete by 28-hundredths of a second to take third place on the podium. Shortly before the finish, it was decided to penalise Oestreich by 30 seconds, dropping him out of the points (to 12th). This handed fifth place to Hahn, ahead of Vršecký and Bösiger, who seemed to have overcome the eye injuries he’d sustained. Because of his retirement in the first race, he’d had to start from the rear of the 19-strong field, but the battle-hardened Swiss veteran bravely fought his way up. Steffi Halm finished eighth, but then received a 20-second penalty for overspeeding, which meant she was finally classified 13th. The rest of the points went to Reinert, Blaise, and the young Hungarian Benedek Major (MAN).
Albacete now takes the overall lead for the first time this season — with 143 points he is four points ahead of Hahn (139), who is followed by Oestreich (111), Kiss and Vrsecky (102 each), and Lacko (85). Truck Sport Lutz Bernau (Albacete / Oestreich) topped the team ranking in the first, followed by Castrol Team Hahn Racing (Hahn / Mäkinen) and OXXO Energy Truck Race Team (Kiss / Major). In the second race it was MKR Technology (Lacko / Bösiger) on top, followed by Hahn and Bernau.

Supported by Meritor Translation: Eliot Lobo

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