Navarra Preliminary Report

04. June 2014On the coming Pentecost weekend the tiny village of Los Arcos in the north of Spain will turn into a pilgrim town again, this time for a whole horde of truckrace fans. The drivers in the FIA European Truck Racing Championship, which makes its second stop of the season at the Circuito de Navarra, are extremely popular among the motorsport-mad Spaniards, and it’s no accident that truck racing’s première here last year was the most successful event held on this new racetrack in the Basque country.
It’s a bit surprising, then, that of the 22 entrants for this year’s event there are only two Spanish race-by-race drivers — David Marco Bermejo (MAN) and Pedro Ignacio Garcia Marco (Iveco). At Albacete, which traditionally hosted the race on the first weekend of May, and even in Jarama, there’ve been more than 36 race trucks on the grid at times.
Artur Ardavichus joins the gang for this race in the French Lion team’s third MAN. The Kazakh is actually entered this season in the French series, but Lion Racing wants to make a big splash here in Navarra with its trio of drivers, including local hero Javier Mariezcurrena, who lives and runs his construction business quite close by. For the first time his won’t be a solitary MAN — he and his German teammate Steffi Halm will be fighting for team points together.
The entire list of FIA registrants will take the start, including Mercedes pilot Dominique Orsini (FRA). MB Motorsport will, at last, have André Kursim in the race in his new tankpool24 Mercedes after the German youngster was incapacitated for the season-opener in Misano following a painful tick bite.
Last year Norbert Kiss went into the Navarra weekend with something of an advantage, being the only ETRC pilot to have raced on this circuit in earlier seasons in the Spanish SEAT cup; this year the MAN driver is, indeed, one of the favourites to win the championship. His rather effortless victories against MAN top dogs Jochen Hahn (GER) and Antonio Albacete (ESP) in the last race in Italy were impressive, to say the least, and the Hungarian already lies a bare three points behind defending champ Hahn, and ahead of Albacete, in the rankings.
If the races in Misano demonstrated one other thing, it was that the championship isn’t going to be a walkover for the mighty MANs, not by a long shot — if the one-two by Buggyra Freightliner’s Czech pilots David Vršecký and Adam Lacko is any indication. Be that as it may (not), it’s going to be hot this weekend. The weather forecast is clear skies with temperature upwards of 30°C.

Impressions: