Sunday in Le Mans Part 2 - Adam Lacko takes Race 3

24. September 2017Le Mans - His victory in Sunday’s first race in Le Mans, with its 20-points haul, is another big stride towards the title for Adam Lacko – especially considering that the Czech and his Buggyra Freightliner seemed to have been mired in a mini crisis the day before. But now the man was back on the front row of the grid. Polesitter Lenz stayed on the raceline through the Dunlop curve into the chicane; Lacko, squeezed out of room, had to cut across the chicane, which put him ahead of Lenz and into the lead. He never looked back.
The MAN pilot kept hammering at his rear crash guard, but the streetwise Czech isn’t the championship leader for nothing – and he showed he’s every bit as difficult to overtake as his teammate Vršecký.
Hahn and Kiss lurked in the shadows that were only beginning to appear, hoping for a misstep by either of the frontrunners from which they might profit. But they were not to be obliged, and the four trucks crossed the finish line in intervals of between one and two seconds with Hahn in 3rd.
Steffi Halm took the flag only half a second behind Kiss. It was all very close, but you never got the feeling that the order would change.
Vršecký and Körber followed shortly after in places 6 and 7.
Behind them the battle for 8th, and the prized pole for Race 4, and for the two final positions in the points, raged. Albacete had not been able to set a qualifying time because of problems with his truck, which meant he’d had to start 16th and last. His goal was to make it at least into 8th place – but there was no shortage of competitors vying for that coveted object. The plucky Spaniard had made up a good bit of ground when he stumbled upon Shane Brereton. For the two MAN pilots it was do or die, and in the penultimate corner their fight was decided – in favour of André Kursim! Albacete attempted to muscle his way into a very small gap on the inside of the 90° bend, the trucks collided, and both skidded off into the gravel. While the Spaniard was able to set off immediately, the Englishman took a bit more time to get back on track. Kursim was the one to profit, inheriting 8th ahead of Albacete and Brit David Jenkins (MAN). All that Brereton was left with was a thankless 12th behind José Rodrigues.
Buggyra Racing 1969 (Vršecký / Lacko) took the top step on the team podium, followed by Reinert Adventure (Steffi Halm / Lenz) and „Die Bullen von Iveco Magirus“ (Hahn / Körber).
Kursim collected the Promoter’s Cup victory ahead of Jenkins and José Rodrigues.

Impressions: