Sunday on the Nürburgring – Part 1

14. July 2013Nürburgring - It was a long, long night for everyone – the fans, the teams, and the drivers, – like Saturday nights at the Truck Grand Prix usually are. The races of the 5th round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship were followed by the country music concert with the spectacular fireworks display. (The pop fans had got their money’s worth on Friday evening.) Besides, a number of teams and exhibitors threw lavish parties, some that went on till the wee hours. The weather, of course, was perfectly conducive — and it’s been clear and sunny this morning too. But, as you might expect, there were hardly very many wakeful fans to follow the early warm-up at 8 am.
Spanish championship leader Antonio Albacete (MAN) made his ambitions very clear by setting the fastest time, but none of his closest competitors – the two Germans Markus Oestreich and Jochen Hahn (both MAN), the Czech David Vršecký (Buggyra Freightliner), and the Hungarian Norbert Kiss (MAN) – was more than a tenth of a second behind.
In the second timed practice that followed an hour or so later, these five all stepped up their pace dramatically, laying down just one quick lap and then returning to the pits to conserve their tyres, all presuming to have qualified for the SuperPole. And, as it turned out, that one lap was good enough — nobody else was able to attain to their times, all in the 1:55s. The other qualifiers for the SuperPole were Benedek Major (HUN) in an MAN, the two MKR Renault pilots Adam Lacko (CZE) and Markus Bösiger (SUI), the Finn Mika Mäkinen, and the German René Reinert (both MAN).
Albacete was sovereign in the SuperPole as well, setting the only time under 1:55s with a lap of 1:54.986, the barest eight hundredths of a second faster than Hahn. The two protagonists in the ETRC thus secured the front row for themselves. They were followed (in order) by Kiss, Vršecký, Oestreich, Lacko, Major, Bösiger, Reinert, and Mäkinen.

Supported by Meritor Translation: Eliot Lobo

Impressions: