European Truck Racing / Truck Race Information Service

Misano Preliminary Report

25. May 2017The Misano World Circuit on Italy’s Adriatic coast is one of the longest-established truck race venues on the FIA’s European calendar, and the round here is one of the most popular among the teams and drivers because of the usually splendid early-summer weather. For most of these, and the thousands of fans and visitors, no race weekend at Misano is complete without a barefoot outing to the beach, getting the sand between one’s toes, and a dip in the Mediterranean – even if only to wet one’s feet.
But despite the unmistakable holiday spirit, everyone knows they’re here for the truck racing first and foremost. The second round of this year’s ETRC is also the home leg for Iveco. For six years now the Ulm-based Schwabentruck outfit has flown the flag for the Italian truckmaker, with thrice-champion Gerd Körber in the cockpit. His charismatic performances as a race-by-race entrant have made an impression at the highest levels of the company’s management and aroused a deep interest for trucksport in general and circuit racing in particular.
This season the Italians have pulled off a coup by persuading reigning four-times champion for MAN Jochen Hahn to jump ship. As „Die Bullen von Iveco Magirus“, Hahn and Körber together boast the best prospects in the team championship, and should they pick up in Misano where they left off in Spielberg, this weekend promises to be a veritable Iveco fest – in front of a home crowd.
Iveco’s home advantage notwithstanding, MAN spearhead Steffi Halm and the 10 remaining comrades-in-arms won’t let go of any chance they can lay their hands on. While Halm leads the pack in pursuit of Hahn, the top dog in this group is actually Adam Lacko. The Czech has on four occasions featured on the podium at the end-of-season FIA gala, though never on the winner’s pedestal – a record he is more determined than ever to change. He’ll have strong support in that endeavour, both at Misano and the rest of the season, from compatriot David Vršecký, who makes his ETRC comeback in the second Buggyra Freightliner.
German Steffi Halm won’t be bearing the standard for MAN alone either; she and countryman Sascha Lenz are serious contenders for the European Champion Team title as Reinert Adventure. More immediately, though, the two will very likely determine the compositions of each of the four prizewinners’ podia this weekend.
Two other, far more experienced MANler, Antonio (ESP) and José Rodrigues (PRT), who are also competing as a team, showed in Spielberg that they are more than a match for the nominal favourites. Returning after a year’s absence, Albacete was right back where he belongs – on the podium, of course. And Rodrigues was a surprise winner of Saturday’s second race.
And not least, there are the Mercedes race trucks of the tankpool24 Racing Team. It was here in Misano last season that Hungarian Norbert Kiss, in only his second race for tankpool24, struck fear in the competition with the team’s very first podium-place finish. In fact he’d have finished higher up in the final classification were it not for a series of mishaps and a frustratingly temperamental truck. That won’t be a problem this year, even if the twice-champ lost points in Spielberg for no-fault incidents that cost him race positions and, indeed, a finish.
Kiss’s teammate André Kursim, meanwhile, has been on the ascendant. The German youngster’s was in sight of a podium-place finish in the last race when his truck was rear-ended off the track and into retirement.
The performance parity between the Top 10 at the season-opener was remarkable; only seven-tenths separated the slowest truck in the SuperPole from the polesitter. And so we’re in for the closest racing we’ve seen in ages.
After all that edge-of-your-seat action, fans can relax their taut nerves walking around of hundreds of Italy’s most beautifully turned-out trucks lined up along one portion of the paddock.