Coupe de France Camions – Sunday in Nogaro
25. June 2017Nogaro - There was not a cloud in the sky, and the sun blazed mercilessly on the 36,000 spectators on the second race day of this 3rd round of the Coupe de France Camions at Circuit Paul Armagnac in Nogaro.
Once again Anthony Janiec was the measure of a MAN, putting his truck on pole. Going into the first race, he had defending champ and MAN colleague Thomas Robineau alongside on the grid.
The temperature had climbed to 30°C, and the asphalt along the pit straight touched 60° in parts. Janiec was winning the race from pole. Robineau ceded his 2nd place for a short space to Lionel Montagne, but was able to regain it. The podium was thus settled fairly early on. Though Portuguese patrão José Teodosio kept trying to wrest 3rd place from his Renault colleague, there was no real threat of his succeeding.
The four-way contest for 5th was far closer. José Sousa, also from Portugal, was stalked by a trio of yellow Lion trucks led by the two youngsters Louis Meric, 17, and Teo Calvet, 16, both driving MANs. Right behind them was the Lion Renault with Jean Charles Mauri waiting to pounce. But Sousa wasn’t letting his guard down, and despite massive damage to his Renault managed to salvage 5th place by half a second ahead of Meric and Calvet. Mauri was followed home by Franck Conti (Volvo) and Vincent Crouzade (Iveco) in 9th and 10th.
The outcome of the concluding race of this round of the Coupe de France Camions was a small sensation – the first time a 16-year-old won a championship race of consequence in truck racing. Meric, polesitter by virtue of his 6th-place finish in the earlier race, had been relegated to the rear-end of the field for an overspeed infringement, handing pole to Teo Calvet. On second position was experienced Renault pilot José Sousa, whom he’d need to out-accelerate at the start. But the instant the lights turned green the yellow MAN sprang into the lead and pulled away, while Sousa got caught out in the rumble and lost a couple of positions. Calvet’s most immediate pursuers were the two Renault pilots Montagne and Teodosio, but they were being hunted down by the strongest driver of this year’s Coupe de France Camions, Calvet’s teammate Janiec. He needed a few laps to overpower the two Renault pilots, and then proceeded to narrow the gap to Calvet. But catching up is one thing; overtaking is another. And so the two MAN Lions scored a chanceless one-two, 16-year-old Teo Calvet, TRO president Fabien Calvet’s son, mounting the top step of the podium in his first race weekend. Montagne was third, followed by Teodosio. Defending champ Robineau’s advance was rudely halted in the third lap when a competitor crashed heavily into his rear, forcing him to retire with severe damage to the red MAN and lose vital championship points.
At some distance behind the leading group another quartet had coalesced, and these fought tooth and nail every metre of the way to the flag. Bearing the scars of battle the Volvo of Conti, the two Renaults of Sousa and Pole Gregory Ostaszewski, and the MAN of Meric crossed the line in intervals of a second. Places 9 and 10 went to Crouzade and Mauri.
The invitation races were, for the second day, dominated by drivers from the British Isles, foremost among them Ryan Smith. He and his MAN were strongest again. For the day’s first race, the third of four run according to BTRC regulations, Volvo pilot Stuart Oliver had pole, his son Michael starting alongside in the Team Oliver Racing Scania. Michael found better traction at the start and took the lead forthwith. But Smith shot up the ranks like greased lightning and had soon thrust Stuart Oliver from second place. The junior Oliver made it much harder for him; lap after lap Michael successfully beat back the BTRC leader’s attacks till at last he too was forced to surrender to the overwhelming superiority of Smith and his MAN.
The highlight of the closing laps was a generational showdown in the Oliver family, Stuart ceding 2nd place to Michael by a tense tenth.
Right up behind them were Terry Gibbon (MAN), Finn John Hemming (Mercedes), and Ray Coleman (MAN), and these were followed by the two Spaniards David Marco Bermejo (MAN) and José Manuel Vera Zaragoza (Iveco).
Smith was missing from the grid for the final race – he hadn’t made it to the grid in time for the formation, and would have to start from the pit lane exit after the field had swept past. Nevertheless, in only a few laps he’d rocketed up to the ranks of the frontrunners, led by Ray Coleman. The race was interrupted following Hemming’s hefty excursion into a tyre barrier, and it took a while for the vital fluids the Mercedes had haemorrhaged to be mopped up and the track to be cleared for racing again.
At the restart Smith was off like a shot. He quickly grabbed the lead and roared off to victory, trailed by Cole.
Third step on the podium was bitterly contested till the finish line by Michael Oliver and Terry Gibbon, who eventually lost out by a few tenths and had to settle for a thankless 4th place.
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