FIA ETRC Championship leader Jochen Hahn will start on pole position for this afternoon’s opening race at Le Mans, in the final weekend of a nail-bighting championship.
FIA ETRC Championship leader Jochen Hahn will start on pole position for this afternoon’s opening race at Le Mans, in the final weekend of a nail-bighting championship.
Hahn, who comes to La Sarthe with a 35-point advantage over Adam Lacko, was in irresistible form in Superpole to top the times by six-tenths of a second. His Team Reinert Adventure MAN recorded the fastest time of the day at 2m05.990s to claim a ninth pole of the year, despite a slippery track after oil was dropped earlier in the qualifying session.
Norbert Kiss, who had topped the second Free Practice, was second fastest in his Tankpool 24 Racing Mercedes-Benz, with Rene Reinert (Reinert Racing MAN) just six-thousandths of a second shy of Kiss.
Adam Lacko’s Buggyra Racing Freightliner struggled against the pace of Hahn’s MAN and ended Superpole fourth fastest, 0.695s away from his German nemesis.
Fifth quickest was Steffi Halm’s MAN, the Reinert Racing driver sharing the third row with French ace Anthony Janiec (MAN), with veteran racer Gerd Körber taking seventh best time aboard his Schwaben Truck Racing Iveco.
Sascha Lenz claimed eighth best time in his SL Racing Team MAN to be just under a tenth quicker than Ellen Lohr’s Truck Sport Lutz Bernau MAN, while British driver Shane Brereton celebrated his first visit to Superpole with 10th best time.
Qualifying 1
The qualifying session that formed Superpole was a frustrating one for a number of drivers, as it was red-flagged with just over three minutes to go. Andre Kursim’s Tankpool 24 Racing Mercedes-Benz dropped oil, which caught out a number of drivers, especially Erwin Klein Nagelvoort who dropped his Scania into the gravel at Virage de la Chappelle. Only a handful of drivers ventured back out to try to improve their lap times in order to progress to Superpole when the session resumed.
The order was, therefore, decided by the times set prior to the stoppage. Championship leader Jochen Hahn was fastest in his MAN, his time of 2m07.005s quicker by 0.567s than the surviving Tankpool 24 Racing Mercedes-Benz of Norbert Kiss second fastest. Steffi Halm (MAN) was third for Reinert Racing with Gerd Körber’s Iveco fourth ahead of Rene Reinert’s MAN. A disappointed sixth, 1.705s adrift of Hahn was Adam Lacko (Freightliner) ahead of French hero Anthony Janiec’s Lion Truck Racing Team MAN, the former Formula 3 racer seventh.
The MANs of Sascha Lenz and Ellen Lohr came next with Shane Brereton’s MAN rounding out the top 10. Jiri Forman’s Buggyra Racing Team Freightliner had been in 10th, but lost three lap times for exceeding track limits, which bounced the Czech down to 15th.
Those who missed the cut to Superpole, along with Forman, were Frantisek Vojtisek who pitted early with problems with his MAN, Klein Nagelvoort, John Hemming (whose Mercedes-Benz lost times due to exceeding track limits) and Eduardo Rodrigues whose MAN also exceeded track limits. Kursim’s problems put him last in the grid if there is time for repairs to be completed.
Race one of the weekend, the 33rd of a dramatic season, starts at 1445 local time.