Sunday in Most Part 1 – Lacko makes the Most of a slippery track to take pole

02. September 2018Most - Sunday morning at this 5th round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship at Autodrom Most dawned every bit as wet as the morning before. Okay, it wasn’t pouring sheets, but the persistent fine drizzle was still enough to soak you to the skin in seconds.
There was standing water on the track during warm-up and the trucks first had to squeegee a halfway driveable line for themselves with their broad tyres. Home hero Adam Lacko, seemingly oblivious to the slippery conditions, lapped a whopping five seconds faster in his Buggyra Freightliner than everyone else. As the 15 minutes ticked on, the times improved all round, but Lacko was still quickest in 2:22.904. Championship leader Jochen Hahn’s (GER) came in second-fastest, more than two seconds slower in his Iveco.
The rain had let up at the start of Q2, but the track was still saturated. Lacko was the first to go faster than 2:20; Hahn came tumbling after, but the Czech countered immediately – it appeared as if the Buggyra pilot had an endless store of reserves from which to draw. It was he eventually that also set the best time of the session, his 2:18.335 a whole eight tenths shorter than Hahn’s best. Hungarian Norbert Kiss (Mercedes Benz), the four MAN pilots Antonio Albacete (ESP), Sascha Lenz (GER), José Rodrigues (POR), and René Reinert (GER), German Iveco pilots Steffi Halm and André Kursim, and – surprisingly – British Buggyra driver Oly Janes completed the Top 10.
After a brief interval it was time for absolute decision – Super Pole. That Lacko would snap up the best starting position was never in doubt. More interesting was the order behind Buggyra’s fat fox, whose 2:16.975 was, well, unassailable. Hahn took more than three tenths more to settle the front row of the grid. Kiss turned out ever faster laps over the 10 minutes of the session, but was never a danger to the duo at the top.
The Hungarian tankpool24 pilot was joined on the second row by Lenz. Albacete, José Rodrigues, Reinert, Kursim, Halm, and Janes will start from the following positions.