Jochen Hahn has taken an unexpected second Zolder victory, after long-time leader Adam Lacko retired late in the race.
Jochen Hahn has taken an unexpected second Zolder victory, after long-time leader Adam Lacko retired late in the race.
Lacko started from pole and immediately pulled away from Hahn to take a 0.730s lead over the German at the end of the first lap. He increased that margin to almost four seconds by lap 8 and seemed to be on his way to an easy victory, when suddenly his Buggyra International Racing System Freightliner stopped on track.
A faultless Hahn inherited the lead and the Team Hahn Racing MAN went on to take the race win, his tenth of the season. As a result of his second victory of the weekend, and Lacko’s no-score, Hahn has extended his championship lead to 36 points over Lacko.
The two Reinert Racing trucks, which are also prepared by Hahn, came across the finish line to take second and third. René Reinert finished in second place, 3.295s behind the race winner, while Steffi Halm secured yet another podium finish. Her third-place means she has now moved up into fifth place in the championship.
Hungarian Norbert Kiss managed to limit the damage in the battle for third in the championship, by claiming fourth place after 12 laps of racing around the 4-kilometer track. The reigning FIA ETRC champion is now five points clear of René Reinert.
Gerd Körber and his Team Schwabentruck Iveco were able to keep the Lion Truck Racing MAN of Anthony Janiec behind to take fifth place, while Sascha Lenz secured seventh place and a front row start for Race Three.
The S.L. Racing Team Germany driver had started from ninth on the grid and briefly lost a place to Andre Kursim on the opening lap. After an exciting battle with the two drivers side-by-side through the first few corners Lenz passed Jiri Forman to take eighth place on lap eight. When Lacko retired that automatically became seventh.
Kursim eventually finished in eighth, just seven-tenths of a second ahead of Ellen Lohr in the Truck Sport Lutz Bernau MAN. As a result, Kursim will start the final race of the weekend from pole position. Portugal’s Eduardo Rodrigues scored the final point of the race, while Thomas Robineau came home to take 11th place after having to take a drive thru penalty for penalty markers.
The Buggyra International Racing System team had a race they will want to forget. Just two laps after Lacko retired, Forman went off into the gravel trap at the first left-hander. The Czech driver was unable to drive his Freightliner out of the gravel and was also classified as a non-finisher.
Erwin Klein Nagelvoort only completed four laps before bringing the EK Truck Race Scania into the pits, where he retired from the race.
The one -two for Hahn and Reinert means that Reinert Adventure took maximum points in the team championship.
The fourth and final race of the 2016 Belgian Truck Grand Prix, round 7 of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship, starts at 17:10 local time this afternoon.