Jarama Preliminary Report

04. October 2017This coming weekend Circuito del Jarama, north of Spanish capital Madrid, will host the finale of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship for the first time since 2010. The 31st Gran Premio Camión de España is the only truck race event on the Iberian peninsula, serving simultaneously as the sole round of the Spanish championship. And so the 9th and last event in the European series has a grand total of 20 trucks on the entry list, including the Spaniards as guest drivers.
Twelve of the 13 full-season competitors are registered here. The Mercedes of Frenchman Dominique Orsini isn’t ready to race yet after the catastrophic engine failure in Zolder. Race engines of this vintage aren’t available off the shelf and have to be painstakingly (re)built from scratch – and that takes time. But Orsini expects to be back mixing it up at the finale of the Coupe de France Camions in Albi.
Five of the eight race-by-race pilots are from Spain, and the trucks belonging to the Vila brothers will – obviously – be doing their thing again. The Vilas have been the darlings of the Spanish crowds for decades. They may not always lap the circuit as many times as the rest of the field, but nobody else drives as spectacularly entertainingly – tyre-shredding burnouts, smoking donuts, and what have you – as Alberto and Enrique. Never mind that the former has made way for his son José this time; the fireworks will be there alright. The three other Spaniards’ rough handling of their trucks is no less sensational, and the local fans enjoy their antics immensely.
The Portuguese Rodrigues family will once again have all three generations in action – grandfather Eduardo, father José, and grandson José Eduardo. José of course has the best prospects of the three – who are all driving MANs, albeit of totally different characteristics. José is a regular Top 10 finisher, and has also won ETRC races in the truck that Spaniard Antonio Albacete drove in 2015.
Equally capable is another MAN pilot, old fox Frankie Vojtíšek (CZE), who is back for the third time this season.
Frenchman Anthony Janiec (MAN), whose Lion team has dedicated itself to the Coupe de France Camions, makes an appearance in the ETRC for the second time, and is a strong contender for points. Janiec was the third-highest points scorer at the Nürburgring – as a race-by-race. But for the Lion team, racing at Circuito del Jarama has less to do with collecting points and more with setting the MAN up as thoroughly as possible for success at the finale of the French championship. Janiec’s lead in that series may be larger than Adam Lacko’s in the ETRC, but teamowner Patrick Folleas wants to play it safe and is leaving nothing to chance.
Lacko’s Buggyra team will be preparing with similar intensity. The two Freightliner Fatfoxes weren’t taken back to the team’s Czech workshop, but underwent a thorough examination at a facility in France. Other teams took off directly for Spain, and will do their service and setups onsite.
Those that elected to work on their trucks back at their home bases presently face an odyssey trying to get to Madrid – those, that is, that chose to take the Mediterranean route rather the one through the west of France. The civic shutdown across Catalonia and the associated blockades of the motorways have forced them to search for new ways to get to Circuito del Jarama.
But they’ll be amply rewarded, when they finally make it, with fabulous weather – provided the forecasts hold. There’s a weekend bathed in sunlight to look forward to, with day temperatures of up to 30°C, although these can drop to single digits overnight because the circuit is a good 700m above sea level.

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