Friday in Spielberg

29. April 2016Spielberg - The teams arriving in Spielberg on Wednesday and Thursday were all given the distinct impression that they were here to participate in some surprise winter sports on the Red Bull Ring, not the first round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship. The bull, the statuesque emblem of this racing circuit in the state of Styria in southeast Austria, was almost entirely enveloped in clouds, set amidst a snowy landscape. Heavy snowfall persisted till yesterday afternoon, but then the clouds parted and the first rays of the sun broke through. Soon the snowy splendour was but a melting memory.
The air was crisp overnight, but with continuing clear skies the sun managed to dry out the rest of the snow by noon, so that absolutely no evidence of the unexpected winter weather remained.
The temperatures were pushing 13°C in the shade by afternoon; in the sun you could actually sit out quite comfortably in only a T-shirt. The newly re-laid track surface – the truck racers are the first that will leave their marks here – was even measured at 30°.
All eyes were on Norbert Kiss and his tankpool24 Mercedes. The Hungarian will race solo here; his young German teammate André Kursim can give him little more than moral support, his own truck not being fully race-ready yet. The last we heard was that there’d been problems with the supplier of electrical and engine components. But even Kiss’s truck wasn’t in top form at the beginning, even though the defending champ kept increasing his pace lap after lap. Starting with the taxi rides for VIPs and the press in the morning through till the one-hour additional free practice, his lap times dropped steadily - till his engine suffered terminal turbocharger failure.
But the tankpool24 crew had the Mercedes up and running in time for the first official free practice session, and Kiss was already seventh quickest on his first lap out.
The two German MAN pilots Jochen Hahn and René Reinert set the pace with a gap of more than one second at the top of the timesheet.
The two picked up in the second session where they’d left off in the first, but now the rest of the pack was considerably closer, the closest of all being home hero Markus Altenstrasser. The Iveco pilot was going faster by the lap and, at the end, was not quite a 10th of a second behind Reinert. Following somewhat further behind were Czech Adam Lacko (Buggyra Freightliner), Briton Ryan Smith (MAN), and Kiss, all separated by not more than two-tenths.
Lots to look forward to in tomorrow’s qualifying and races!

Impressions: