Tests in Most hit by changeable weather

15. April 2014Most - Any of the teams or pilots that had tested at the rainswept Circuito del Jarama in Madrid or the Circuit Paul Armagnac in Nogaro, where the track conditions nevertheless weren’t that bad at all, who thought they’d finally be able to get in some exhaustive testing at Most were for the most part disappointed. In the event, none of the Nogaro teams made the trip to Most, although till Sunday evening it was expected that Europart Racing/Team 14 would be here, together with the MKR service team, working on optimising the Renault they’d bought from Mario Kress.
The drivers who suffered the most from the continuously changing weather were Gerd Körber (GER) and Markus Altenstrasser (AUT). This is the first outing for both pilots of the Schwaben Truck Iveco team from Ulm, while all the others out on the track – the two Czechs David Vršecký and Adam Lacko in their Buggyra Freightliners, and the three MAN pilots Jochen Hahn, René Reinert (both GER), and Markus Bösiger (SUI) – have already put down tonnes of test kilometres. But even they haven’t experienced anything like the conditions we’re seeing here in Most.
When morning dawned on Monday the outlook was decided unfriendly, but then the heavenlies suddenly lightened up and a summery blue sky spread itself across over Most. From then on the weather kept changing, and with it the track conditions, by the half-hour.
Fierce storms lashed the circuit with heavy showers, while the sky on the horizon remained clear and blue — and vice versa. While the Autodrome lay bathed in sunlight, a storm front as black as death crossed not far away. As a result, there was really no time to test a full session with a single setup — every now and again the chassis settings had to be adjusted for the changing grip levels.
The heavily overcast skies on Tuesday morning didn’t exactly draw cries of delight from the truck racers either. But the track conditions were significantly better than they were the day before, and it remained largely dry. The trucks spent as much time out on the track as possible devouring the asphalt, far too cold as it still was.

Impressions: