Sunday at the Slovakiaring Part 1 - Hahn slows for pole

16. July 2017Slovakiaring - Clear and bright weather was forecast for the final day of the 4th round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship, and the truck racers got about on their morning warm-up under an open heaven with only a few scattered clouds, the temperature a bracing 15°C. Excellent conditions for racing, but the lap times were astonishing nonetheless – nobody had gone so fast yet this weekend. After yesterday’s practice sessions and the first two races it looked like this circuit, with sweeping curves negotiable at top speed and a relatively rough track surface, was extremely abrasive on the tyres. In many instances the front left tyre, in particular, looked like it couldn’t have lasted another kilometre. And now the racers were setting new lap records on worn tyres.
Hungarian ace Norbert Kiss managed a 2:41.769, almost a second faster than his closest rivals, German Iveco pilot Jochen Hahn (GER) and Czech fatfox Adam Lacko in the Buggyra Freightliner, the only other drivers to go under 2:43.
In qualifying, when the trucks go out on new or only slightly worn tyres, Kiss was once again quickest with 2:42.768, albeit almost exactly one second slower than he’d gone in warm-up. Hahn wasn’t able to match his earlier time either, taking half a second more. Indeed, almost every pilot was now likewise slower.
Kiss and Hahn were joined in the Top 10 by MAN pilot Antonio Albacete (ESP); Lacko; the three Germans Steffi Halm, Sascha Lenz (both MAN), and Gerd Körber (Iveco); David Vršecký (CZE) in a Buggyra Freightliner; Mercedes pilot André Kursim (GER); and Portuguese José Rodrigues (MAN).
The times were slower still in the all-or-nothing Super Pole shootout. Hahn snapped up pole from under Kiss’s nose with a 2:43.136, not quite eight hundredths quicker. Albacete was third, followed by Lacko, Steffi Halm, Vršecký, Kursim, José Rodrigues, Lenz, and Körber.

Impressions: