Saturday in Jarama Part 3 - Hahn heads Lacko off in second

01. October 2016Jarama - The second race today presented the truck racing community with another historic moment after the first three-generation race in the FIA ETRC by the Rodrigues family – the first all-woman front row on the starting grid.
Shortly after the lights turned green, polesitter Lohr had to let her WOW! Women On Wheels partner Steffi Halm pass her – the Swabian blonde was simply the faster starter. The grande dame of truck racing, however, was determined the rest of the field wouldn’t be pushing its way past. But Hahn and Lacko, having stormed up from 7th and 8th, were now hard on her heels, even as Steffi Halm continued to pull away. It wasn’t long before Hahn, and then Lacko a lap later, had Lohr’s truck receding in their rear-view mirrors.
Halm, in the lead, not wanting any imputation of having tipped the scales in favour of either of her competitors in their title quest, didn’t defend too vigorously when the inevitable attacks came.
Hahn first helped himself to Halm’s lead, but there was no leapfrogging her for Lacko – it took the Czech a full five laps before he could finally move ahead of the MAN-in-blue.
The podium order was thus decided fairly early on – these three were way out ahead of the rest. Not only Steffi Halm but also Hahn and Lacko could take it relatively easy from then on.
Behind this trio the picture was completely different. While we have no hesitation in saying the racing here – so far – has been so fair as to be outstanding, the rest of the field was making life very difficult indeed for Lohr. For the first third of the race she was hounded by Janiec, but when the Frenchman was overtaken by Reinert, it was the German who kept up the hunt. On the very last lap, in the sequence of bends on the brief climb diagonally opposite the pit straight, he seized the inside line into the left-gentle left-hander. But Lohr was quick to counter, and managed to salvage her 4th place by six-hundredths.
Right behind them Janiec, Kiss, and Lenz cut the timing beam in rapid succession. For several laps the young German had somehow kept himself ahead of the pushy defending champ, but on the penultimate lap the tankpool24 pilot made his move and pulled out ahead of the MAN in orange.
Kursim and Forman followed in the last two points-eligible places.
For the second time today Reinert Adventure (Hahn / Reinert) took the team honours, this time ahead of girl gig WOW! Women On Wheels (Lohr / Halm) and Buggyra (Lacko / Forman).
Two Germans once again stood atop the podium at the prizegiving for the Spanish championship, only this time in reversed order, Lohr ahead of Lenz. Third went to José Eduardo Rodrigues, who beat both his father and grandfather in the three-G race.
After Race Day 1 at Jarama, Lacko has managed to shave four points off Hahn’s lead in the overall standings. The German now has 381 points to the Czech’s 350. Reinert is next with 200, followed by Halm (188), Kiss (186), and Janiec (172).

Impressions: