Saturday in Le Mans Part 2 – Jochen Hahn wins to seal his fourth title

08. October 2016Le Mans - The sky is still overcast, but for Jochen Hahn and his team it’s all bright and sunny. The MAN pilot just took his fourth title with a masterful pole-to-flag win. Lacko finished third behind Kiss, collecting only 12 points to Hahn’s 20. The bantam from Altensteig now has 43 points more, and even should he fail to score in every race hereafter and Lacko win every one, the Czech would still come up three points short.
At the start it looked for a few brief moments like Kiss would take the lead, but the MAN pilot’s advance proved inexorable, and he was soon building out his lead with amazing rapidity.
Lacko had been able to snatch 3rd from Reinert, but suddenly, behold, Brit Brereton running in 4th! The MAN pilot from the Isles had cut across a chicane, and the resulting drive-through penalty dropped him back down to 10th.
Körber, meanwhile, had dropped out entirely. The German had had a close encounter with Janiec of the unpleasant kind, and while the Frenchman was able to keep going in his badly beat-up MAN, the Iveco pilot had no choice but to hobble back into the pits with a damaged drive axle.
All this while Hahn’s lead was growing and growing, and should nothing untoward happen, the title was well within his grasp. Nothing did.
Reinert initially wasn’t giving up trying to take 3rd back from Lacko, but two-thirds through, seeing no more prospects of that undertaking succeeding, he decided to hold back. His team was already champion, and should his Reinert Adventure teammate Hahn also take the driver’s title, that would be reward enough for the businessman from Lusatia.
The second Reinert Racing MAN with Steffi Halm in the cockpit came home unchallenged in 5th, ahead of Janiec.
For several laps there was a stiffer fight for 7th between Ellen Lohr and her MAN colleague Lenz. But the younger German also decided to hang back at least now that pole for the second race was certainly his.
The last two places in the points were eventually taken by Forman and Brereton.
Newly crowned champions Reinert Adventure (Hahn / Reinert) were the top team again, ahead of Buggyra (Lacko / Forman) and tankpool24 (Kiss / Kursim).
Mercedes pilot André Kursim hasn’t had a good weekend at all – it’s only begun, and it’s all over already. After convincing times in the practice, his truck suffered irreparable damage in qualifying, which spelt a premature end of the season for the likeable young German.
Now that the title has been decided, the interest has shifted to the remaining places in the standings. Reinert is still third with a 20-points lead over Steffi Halm, and Kiss has only two points fewer than the German WOW- lady.

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