Misano preliminary report
22. May 2014Misano - The paddock at Misano officially opened only at 8 am on Thursday, but a number of teams had already pulled into the expanse the evening before. It looked like they just couldn’t wait for the season-opening race of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship to begin. Saturday morning is when things will actually start to hot up – activities on the track, that is, – even though the teams were already quite hot and bothered as they went about setting up their tents yesterday under a clear blue sky in temperatures of around 30° (in the shade, mind you). With the asphalt in the paddock sizzling at 55° in patches, they were glad for an excuse to ease off a bit. In any case there was no pressing item on the agenda apart from a few shoots for sponsors, where the trucks had changed somewhat in appearance over the winter break. And if that couldn’t be completed on Thursday, there was still the whole of Friday ahead to get it done.
Excellent weather is forecast for the entire weekend. Misano is situated, after all, on Italy’s Adriatic coast, and the holiday atmosphere is pervasive. San Marino is just on the horizon, and for the ladies a shopping tour to the principality won’t require much persuasion. All told, things are still quite relaxed here in Misano.
The tankpool24 Mercedes-Benz team, however, was anything but relaxed. Team boss Markus Bauer had to call off André Kursim’s entry at the last minute with the young German suffering a painfully swollen leg resulting from a tick bite. As if that wasn’t bad news enough, Markus Oestreich, who’d been tapped to stand in for such an eventuality, had already made other commitments for this weekend. So now Frenchman Dominique Orsini will wear the tankpool24 colours – and bear up the Star from Stuttgart – alone. Orsini, in fact, had himself requested to withdraw from Misano because of a bereavement. When the dilemma over Kursim arose, however, he immediately declared he would race regardless, so that at least one Mercedes would feature in the first race of the season.
As we reported earlier, Javier Mariezcurrena is missing from the lineup. The Spaniard will alternate in the cockpit of the No. 20 Lion MAN with Belgian Jean-Pierre Blaise, so that we will have 18 FIA drivers at the start. They will be joined by race-by-race pilots Jérémy Robineau (MAN) and, of course, Gerd Körber. Misano is a must-do race for “Mr Truckracing”, even more so since he started driving an Iveco. While the Italian fans may not have one of their own compatriots to cheer for, they will at least have the satisfaction of watching an Italian marque in action on the track.
Impressions:
