Sunday in Most Part 1 - Hahn back to his pole-winning ways

30. August 2015Most - The sky was a brilliant blue as Sunday dawned, suggesting that the second race day at this 6th round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship in Most would be hot again, at least as far as the temperature’s concerned.
The warm-up was a relaxed affair, and only Hungarian Norbert Kiss, German Jochen Hahn (both MAN), homeboy Adam Lacko (Buggyra Freightliner) and Spaniard Antonio Albacete (MAN) managed times under 2:03s.
Of course everybody was driving on yesterday’s tyres, which the high track temperatures of over 50°C had caused to deteriorate badly. That alone can’t have been the reason, but the atmosphere in general was conspicuously languorous.
Conserving tyres is an important strategic objective, and in the ensuing qualifying for the SuperPole everybody now had fresh set of tyres on with which they hoped to achieve a good starting position - but which would also have to last them for both the day’s races.
And so the top trucks once again were back into the pits after just one lap, their drivers confident of having set a Top 10 time for the SuperPole. Kiss and MAN colleague René Reinert (GER) did two, but with no consequence on the timesheet.
Kiss qualified with 2:01.959s ahead of Albacete, Hahn, Buggyra pilot David Vršecký (CZE), Lacko, an MAN trio with Steffi Halm (GER), Reinert, and Frankie Vojtíšek (CZE), and Iveco pilot Gerd Körber (GER).
German MAN driver Ellen Lohr was 10th, but that’s never a secure position till the session has closed, and so she stayed out on the track till the last second to be able to react should someone else go quicker than she. Her biggest threat was 2014 teammate Anthony Janiec (FRA) in the Lion MAN.
The two MAN pilots Mathew Summerfield (GBR) and Sascha Lenz (GER), the two Germans from the tankpool24 Mercedes team Roland Rehfeld and André Kursim, and Scania pilot Erwin Kleinnagelvoort (NLD), on the other hand, would have to pull a rabbit out of a hat to make the cut.
At the end Lutz Bernau’s team realised they could have called Lohr back in much earlier - there’d been no change in the timesheet after the first third of qualifying.
The SuperPole began with a bombshell. Hahn’s name was emblazoned at the top of the timing monitor with an astounding lap of 2:01.455s. It was clear to the bantam from Altensteig that he couldn’t go any quicker, and so he just waited to see what the rest would come up with.
But every attempt his competitors made to equal his time was futile; indeed, only Kiss managed to crack the 2:02s barrier, but the Hungarian was a full four-tenths slower than Hahn.
The rest of the qualifying order for Sunday’s first race is Albacete, Lacko, Vršecký, Reinert, Halm, Körber, Lohr, and Vojtíšek.

Impressions: