Friday in Le Mans
09. October 2015Le Mans - The “24h Camions” in Le Mans – which, to clear any misperception, isn’t a 24-hour race but a regular round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship with four sprints of 45 km each like every other – has always had an incredibly packed programme, cramming into just two days a frenzy of activities even three days wouldn’t suffice for. And if that weren’t enough, most of the teams had a chock-full calendar even on Friday!
The teams had all travelled to Circuit Bugatti in the heart of France directly from Jarama in the centre of Spain, a journey of 1,100 km. With no chance to stop in at their base workshops en route, a whole pile of service tasks remained to be completed.
The tankpool24 team in particular had lots to do. Damage arising out of a wrongly wired power socket in Jarama will only be possible to rectify back home in Nürtingen; here the focus was on replacing the defective engine in André Kursim’s Mercedes race truck with a new unit that a crew from Germany had brought with them.
They came along with the second Mercedes, which should have been driven by Roland Rehfeld. But the German remains indisposed, and so it will be fielded instead by Florian Orsini. The team had wanted at all events to have both its trucks racing in the finale, and the Frenchman was the best alternative, having raced a tankpool24 truck in recent years.
But there was lots else to see as well, not just the teams at work.
In the early afternoon Fabien Calvet drove a handful of laps for the media in an Iveco from the French series. While he was at it, the flamboyant TRO president also showed a few journalists just what a race truck is capable of. (There are no obligatory taxi rides for the press in Le Mans.)
Later it was time for a very special gathering. Between the entry to the pits and the home straight, emblazoned on the asphalt, are the words “Le Mans”, instantly recognisable to every motorsport fan who has watched telecasts from Circuit Bugatti. All the drivers of the FIA ETRC, together with their counterparts from the French championship, collected here for the biggest group photograph of this season.
Impressions:
