Sunday at the Slovakia Ring Part 1 – Lacko is on pole

15. July 2018Slovakiaring - The sun blazed down from a cloudless sky and the air was a temperate 20°C as the trucks rolled out for the warm-up early this morning, on this second race day of the 4th round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship at the Slovakia Ring.
The asphalt was cold, compared to its state in the races yesterday, and that reflected immediately in the lap times.
Championship leader Jochen Hahn set the fastest time of the weekend, a 2:42.605, running worn tyres. Surprisingly second-fastest was Hahn’s compatriot
André Kursim, who barely scraped 2:43.
Two hours later in qualifying, things looked quite different. The track had warmed up, and the top pilots, most of them, were on new rubber.
Steffi Halm went more than a second faster than she’d gone earlier, whereas her compatriot and „Die Bullen von Iveco Magirus“ teammate Hahn was more than a second and a half slower than in the warm-up. Given the extra length of this circuit, a driver can only realistically do one hot lap in the 10 minutes provided; just going round before the trucks can start off on their flyer takes up to five minutes. Hahn found himself only 8th fastest, but all he really needed to be was within the Top 10. Both MAN pilots after him, Luis Recuenco (ESP) and Shane Brereton (GBR), were more than 1.3 seconds slower and posed no danger. So the four-times champion calmly swerved back into pit lane to conserve his tyres.
Kursim, second-fastest again, Mercedes pilot Norbert Kiss (HUN), Sascha Lenz (GER) in his MAN, Czech champ Adam Lacko (Buggyra Freightliner), and MAN pilots René Reinert (GER) and Antonio Albacete (ESP), followed suit. The top seven all recorded times in the 2:43s; Hahn, by contrast, only had a 2:44+ to show.
The Top 10 were all charged up, champing at the bit as the time for the start of Super Pole came.. and went. The regulation allows for only five minutes in parc fermé conditions between qualifying and the shootout, but this was taking quite a bit longer. Ray Coleman’s truck had had suffered a turbo failure, and had to be towed back in and the track cleaned up.
Lacko was evidently least perturbed by the delay, because he went out and set the only time under 2:43 – a 2:42.914. Hahn too returned to pace, lapping only two tenths slower than the Czech. Steffi Halm was third-quickest, ahead of Kiss, Albacete, and Reinert, all with 2:43s.
Kursim was 7th, ahead of Lenz. On the strength of their Q2 timings, the two young Germans would have been 3rd and 5th.
Recuenco and Brereton stayed put in 9th and 10th.