Saturday at the Hungaroring Part 3 – Lacko wins his first race this season
16. June 2018Hungaroring - The grid formation for Race 2 threw up a surprise. It wasn’t Shane Brereton who stood on pole, as he should have in accordance with his 8th-place finish earlier, but ninth-placed Adam Lacko. The Englishman took the spot alongside, where his compatriot Ryan Smith’s truck should have stood. Smith in turn found himself banished to the end of the 17-strong field as punishment for his collisions with Antonio Albacete and Adam Lacko earlier. Race control decided to impose on him retrospectively, shortly before the start, two time penalties of 30 seconds, which effectively dropped him to last place on the grid but one.
If Lacko were a tennis player, he was on match point. Pole position with a less experienced Brereton alongside – the reigning champ couldn’t have asked for more. As you’d expect, the Czech duly won the sprint to the first corner. Reinert attached himself to the rear crash guard of the Freightliner, while Brereton busied himself trying to keep his nominally quicker pursuers at bay. That allowed the leading duo to rapidly build out a relatively safe advantage.
The hounds snapping at Brereton’s heels were led by Halm, and soon enough the Iveco warrioress had made her way past the EnglishMAN.
Now it was Lenz’s turn to attack his MAN colleague from the Isles. Brereton held out for half a lap before the young German made it ahead. Kiss also attempted to slip past the Brit in Lenz’s draft, but their two trucks touched, with fatal consequences – for the MAN. Brereton came off with a shredded front right tyre that ended his race there and then.
As things stood at that point, the race was decided. The two leaders had an unassailable advantage, Steffi Halm was sitting pretty in 3rd, Lenz and Kiss weren’t agreed about who should be 4th, and Hahn was lapping at a peaceful pace in a solitary 6th.
But in the closing laps Lacko appeared to have some sort of difficulty with his Freightliner, and Reinert was all ready to take the chance ... that never came, the Czech salvaging his position by all of three tenths.
Halm also appeared to come under some pressure towards the end. At the flag she was only seven tenths ahead of Lenz, with Kiss an identical interval further behind.
Behind Hahn there were very physical duels till the last few metres between Kursim and Albacete for 7th, which the German decided in his favour, as well as for 9th between Englishman Ray Coleman (MAN) and Mercedes pilot Steffen Faas (GER), which the MAN pilot appeared to have won – till the officials slapped a 10 second overspeed penalty on him that dropped him to 12th. That moved Faas up a place to 9th, and the sole remaining FIA point for 10th went to Smith.
Faas also consequently topped the Grammer Truck Cup classification ahead of Englishmen Oly Janes (Buggyra Freightliner) and Terry Gibbon (MAN).
Reinert Adventure (Lenz / Reinert) took the team honours ahead of „Die Bullen von Iveco Magirus“ (Hahn / Halm) and Buggyra Racing 1969 (Janes / Lacko).
Hahn remains the leader in the overall standings. He has 75 points to teammate Steffi Halm’s 54. Kiss is next with 46, followed by Lenz (42), Lacko (39), Albacete (34), Reinert (33), and Kursim (25).
Impressions:
