Saturday at the Hungaroring Part 1 – Hahn muscles his way onto pole

22. June 2019Hungaroring - The thermometer read 22°C at 8 o’clock this morning. By the time the trucks lined up for second free practice an hour later, the sun had withdrawn behind by a thin layer of cloud, and without a hint of a breeze the air was uncomfortably sticky. If the truck racers felt it, they didn’t show it – in the past, they’ve endured temperatures in excess of 60° in their not-exactly-comfy cabins.
Defending champ Jochen Hahn set the pace anew, the German Iveco pilot lapping more than a second quicker than Adam Lacko, his putative rival for the title. The Czech in turn was barely a snout – two hundredths – ahead of Sascha Lenz (MAN). The trio were the only pilots within 2:20 in this session. German Iveco pilot André Kursim, Spaniard Antonio Albacete (MAN), and Steffi Halm (Iveco), were within two tenths off that mark.
The first laps in anger would come only in qualifying, and there Hahn proceeded to dominate from go, albeit with a time (2:19.395) that was considerably off his best in free practice. His „Die Bullen von Iveco Magirus“ teammate Halm was two tenths slower, a razor-thin thousandth ahead of compatriot Lenz.
The rest of the times were very close too, only half a second separating Albacete in P4 from Lacko in P8. Between them lay Kursim, Portuguese José Rodrigues (MAN), and home hero Norbert Kiss (Mercedes-Benz). MAN pilots Jamie Anderson (GBR) and Luis Recuenco (ESP) made up the Top 10 for the Super Pole.
The shootout threw up a few surprises. Hahn wasn’t one of those. He topped the leaderboard with 2:19.047, again some way off his times in free practice, but still almost a second faster than Albacete. Behind them things took a more dramatic turn. At the end, P8 was only seven tenths slower than Albacete. Just one curve negotiated less than optimally proved to be decisive in the allocation of the rest of the spots on the grid.
Kursim and Lacko slotted into Row 2, followed by Halm, José Rodrigues, Anderson, Lenz, Kiss, and Recuenco.