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Most Preliminary Report

Most Preliminary Report

30. August 2018It’s been seven long weeks of waiting for the fans before the FIA European Truck Racing Championship resumes this weekend with Round 5 at Most in the Czech Republic. The Autodrom in Most is the one circuit for which most of the teams possess the greatest wealth of season-over-season comparative data. Remember, it’s here that many of them gather for several days of tests four weeks before the season begins.
For the top teams particularly, the emphasis over the summer certainly hasn’t been on R&R but on relentless improvement – or at least you’d hope. Several of them ran tests as well, albeit on circuits for which they aren’t confident enough in their previous performance data to draw authoritative comparisons. But at Most the teams will determine in FP1 itself – there will be no press rides this year – whether their mods and tweaks have translated into quicker laps.
Four-times champion Jochen Hahn (Iveco) of Germany and home fave Adam Lacko (Buggyra Freightliner) headline the entry list of 18. The Top 10 are all here, with the notable exceptions of MAN pilots Ryan Smith (GBR) and Anthony Janiec (FRA), the latter having opted to concentrate on the French championship and only participate in the ETRC where feasible. Brits Jamie Anderson (MAN), Oly Janes (Buggyra Freightliner), and Terry Gibbon (MAN), Spaniard Luis Recuenco and Portuguese José Eduardo Rodrigues (both MAN), and German Mercedes-Benz pilot Steffen Faas are all first-timers for a race of the ETRC here.
The round at Most has always been a second home race for the German pilots, who make up a third of the field here this year. The circuit is considerably closer than the Nürburgring for fans from the south and east of Germany, and the track commentary is traditionally in both Czech and German.
More than half of the 18 trucks – 10 to be precise – are MANs. Three are Ivecos, two Freightliners, two Mercedes, and one Scania. At the top of the standings are an Iveco (Hahn’s), a Freightliner (Lacko’s), and a Mercedes (Hungarian Norbert Kiss’s). Expect MAN to pull out all the stops to regain its dominance of recent seasons – we could be looking at a terribly exciting second half of the season.

Impressions:

Most Preliminary Report
Most Preliminary Report
Most Preliminary Report
Most Preliminary Report