Saturday in Jarama Part 1 – Norbert Kiss takes his first pole in Jarama

03. October 2015Jarama - The sky over Madrid was lowering this morning, the exact opposite of what the weathermen had predicted. But this had no effect on the fans, who started streaming into Circuito del Jarama at the gates of dawn. Even occasional drops of rain on the stands couldn’t dampen spirits here. Homeboy Antonio Albacete, who has every stretch and corner of the track’s layout etched in his keen memory, lapped quickest among the 20 trucks in his Cepsa MAN in both free practice sessions.
The tankpool24 team will have only one of its Mercedes trucks on the grid in Jarama. Roland Rehfeld has had to pull out because of a severe illness in his family, so MB Motorsport will be represented here by his teammate André Kursim alone.
In qualifying, which began at noon, the racers all pitted after just one lap, every one including Kursim. A broken turbo had brought the youngster to a grinding halt, and the whole field had to wait out the 20 minutes that it took for the track to be cleaned and pronounced clear.
Albacete topped the timesheet initially with a lap of 1:58.004s, a whole half-second slower than his quickest lap in free practice.
When the session was resumed the Spaniard sat tight, like the MAN pilots Norbert Kiss (Hungary), Jochen Hahn and René Reinert (both GER), the Czech Adam Lacko (Freightliner), Anthony Janiec (FRA) and the German Steffi Halm (both MAN), and the second Buggyra Freightliner driver David Vršecký — their advantage over the rest of the field was large enough for comfort.
By now a third of the session was over.
The last two SuperPole slots were contested till the dying seconds by an MAN trio of Ellen Lohr, Sascha Lenz (both GER), and Frankie Vojtíšek (CZE), and Portuguese José Rodrigues (Renault). At the end it was Lenz and Vojtíšek who made it.
In the shootout it was Kiss back in command with a searing lap of 1:57.430s, the quickest of the day by far. Only Albacete could halfway hold his own, but then it started to drizzle, pretty much freezing the front row of the grid. The rows behind Kiss and Albacete were filled up by Hahn, Reinert, Vršecký, Halm, Janiec, Lenz, Vojtíšek, and Lacko, who’d gotten bogged in the gravel in his first lap, preventing him from setting a better time.

Impressions: