European Truck Racing / Truck Race Information Service

Hungaroring Preliminary Report

25. August 2016This anticipatory report on the 5th round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship is also a retrospective on the Truck Grand Prix at the Nürburgring eight weeks ago. That’s right, eight weeks without a single race!
On the other hand the teams and drivers, indeed everyone who’s engaged in the FIA ETRC in some form, really needed that rest after the intensity of European truck racing’s climactic event.
In days gone by the Truck Grand Prix would be followed by the race in Alastaro, Finland. With the long ferry trip across the Baltic sea that involved, followed by a relaxed weekend, the whole experience was like a holiday in itself. Some years later, when the TGP-following round was held in Russia for four years, the expedition was somewhat of an extreme adventure with lots of stress - and that immediately after the Truck Grand Prix!
So nobody’s upset that it’s more leisurely once again.
We’d like to repeat that the TGP is the biggest, most successful, most important event on the ETRC calendar. It’s the one event that no team or sponsor can afford to miss.
To get an idea of how significant this round is, look no further than the number of visitors - 123,000 this year, whereas the official count for the F1 race in Hockenheim at the end of July was 57,000 on the Sunday. In contrast to truck racing, there’s little action for trackside spectators on the Saturday of an F1 weekend.
At the Hungaroring, however, Formula 1 is still a bigger draw than the FIA ETRC. Last year, when the truck racers set up their tents in Hungary for the first time after 25 years, this was amply evident in all corners of the paddock.
But the truck racing circus is palpably more relaxed and family-friendly. Truck racing, after all, is a contact sport like no other, and we don’t mean only on the track. It is, fundamentally, “motorsport up close” for every fan, everywhere. And nowhere more so than in the paddock.
That’s just what home hero Norbert Kiss observed last year, every minute he was about. He only had to emerge somewhere to be thronged by his fans - a whole nation of them. When he was on the track, all you could hear was chants of “Norbi! Norbi!”
Of course, Kiss then was already headed for the title, and driving for the Hungarian OXXO team.
This year OXXO will be represented on track by Englishman Ryan Smith (MAN). And Kiss now drives for the German tankpool24 Mercedes team. His new truck is still in development, which effectively rules him out as a title contender. But the twice-champ is always good for a podium or even a win. So it’s still very likely that we’ll be hearing euphoric cries of “Norbi! Norbi!” from his exuberant fans again this weekend.
The championship, however, is a two-horse race between thrice-champ Jochen Hahn (MAN) and Adam Lacko (Buggyra Freightliner). The young Czech, who finished runner-up last year, is determined to take the title this year, though it’s too close to call yet with Lacko just a point ahead.
As you can see, every point will count. And then the potential spoilers are ever present - not Kiss and his Mercedes alone, but three MAN drivers as well. At the moment René Reinert (GER) is in third place, ahead of Kiss; Frenchman Anthony Janiec fifth, and Steffi Halm in the second Reinert Racing truck, sixth.
Only eight points separate Kiss and Halm, and you’ve got to consider that the young German lady racer only joined the points chase in the second round because her truck wasn’t race-ready.
Every race is going to be bitterly contested, like the concluding one at the TGP. The consequences for the collisions that occurred then will now take effect eight weeks later at the Hungaroring, after seemingly being forgotten after the TGP weekend.
First Halm and Janiec hit it off, pardon the pun, and then leader Reinert and his immediate pursuer Lacko. Nothing major took place in that latter incident, other than the fact that Reinert dropped from first to fifth.
So it was rather surprising for the team that both Halm and Reinert are going to have to start five places down from their qualifying slots in the next race, i.e. the first race on the Hungaroring.