Thursday at the Nürburgring

29. June 2017Nürburgring - It’s only Thursday, but the teams at the Nürburgring for the 3rd round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship already feel like they’re right in the middle of the Truck Grand Prix weekend. After all, some of them have been here right from Tuesday. And there was nearly as much happening in the paddock today as on a normal race day elsewhere.
The weather is typical for the Eifel at this time of year – periods of sunshine alternating with spells of heavy rain. The lines of press folk and team guests for the taxi rides never seemed to end, even though a full four hours had been scheduled for this activity.
And then, of course, there was the one hour of free practice for those drivers who’d given those rides – time enough to try out mods, different setups, and what have you. But the changeable weather and frequently (and widely) varying track conditions doubtless complicated things considerably.
Moreover, the quickest times in the supplemental free practice session were set by drivers you wouldn’t expect. What you can be sure of is that few, if any, were really giving anything away. And so it was Frenchman Anthony Janiec, who’s here as a race-by-race pilot, that recorded the fastest lap. If that was surprising, what was even more amazing was just how much slower the two title favourites, German Iveco pilot Jochen Hahn and Czech Adam Lacko in the Buggyra Freightliner, were – almost 2,5seconds!
Good for yet another surprise was Steffen Faas, who is driving the second Schwabentruck Iveco as a guest. The young German, who has absolutely no track experience in a race truck apart from a few trial laps on the Iveco proving ground in Ulm, finished the session solidly in midfield, ahead of many of the established stalwarts.
Of course, we’ll only know how things really stand in tomorrow’s qualifying and Super Pole.

Impressions: