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Sunday in Jarama Part 1 - Lacko wins last pole of the season

Sunday in Jarama Part 1 - Lacko wins last pole of the season

06. October 2019Jarama - The first fans were already filing into the stands in the dark and 10° chill of dawn with their horns and – typical to Jarama – chainsaw motors, obviously minus the saw blades, ready to welcome another full day of noisy action at Circuito del Jarama.
The sun had appeared on the horizon when the trucks emerged for the warm-up at 9 am, but it was still stone cold in the open. The racers, for all it appeared, were all fired up already, and what was supposed to be an easygoing equipment check turned out to be a full-blown Olympic-style pursuit. Champion Jochen Hahn clocked 1:58.411, eight other pilots also coming in at under 2 minutes. Czech Adam Lacko (Buggyra Freightliner) countered with 1:58.263. That only served to spur Hahn on, and his next was a 1:58.078, the best time of the weekend till then. On worn tyres, mind you.
There was no holding Hahn back in qualifying – he went even quicker with a 1:57.890, becoming the first to crack 1:58. Lacko was 13 hundredths off, and German MAN pilot Sascha Lenz only three hundredths slower than the Czech. This time 11 pilots had gone under 2:00 on their first lap. Nine of them took the exit to pit lane, including home hero Antonio Albacete (MAN), Steffi Halm (Iveco), Mercedes pilot Norbert Kiss (HUN), German Iveco pilots André Kursim and René Reinert, and Portuguese José Rodrigues (MAN). German rookie Fabio Citignola, precariously placed in P10, did another screamer in his Mercedes to cement his spot in the Super Pole.
Hahn came out all guns blazing in the shootout, with a 1:57.595 on his first flying lap, but the time was immediately cancelled for overspeeding. Lacko meanwhile slingshotted his Buggyra to pole with a 1:57.606 at Lenz’s expense, the German clocking in 15 thousandths slower. How much closer could one get? Well, Hahn did. His second may have fallen shy of Lacko’s by 13 hundredths, but it was enough to thrust Lenz from P2 – by all of two hundredths!
Kiss and Albacete also came in under 1:58, the top five spread just three tenths apart.
Steffi Halm qualified in sixth, ahead of Kursim, Reinert, José Rodrigues, and Citignola.