Norbert Kiss sent his home fans wild as he took the first victory of the weekend at the Hungaroring this afternoon.
Norbert Kiss sent his home fans wild as he took the first victory of the weekend at the Hungaroring this afternoon.
The local ace held off rival Jochen Hahn’s Iveco truck to take the maximum points in his Team Tankpool24 Racing Mercedes-Benz. It was his third race win from the last five starts as he starts to put pressure on title leader Adam Lacko.
Kiss didn’t make an especially great start but had enough to resist Hahn at the first corner and was then able to manage a useful gap until the chequered flag to send the Hungarian air-horns and klaxons wild in the packed grandstands.
Kiss’ win ensures that the gap in the points standings is reduced to 33, after leader Adam Lacko came home in fourth position in his Buggyra International Racing System Freightliner. The Czech recovered from a scary moment on the opening lap when a nudge from Antonio Albacete’s Truck Sport Lutz Bernau MAN sent him to the grass at high-speed.
Jochen Hahn’s 15 points for second position were also welcome as he also made gains on Lacko. Steffi Halm had a relatively lonely race in third position in her Reinert Racing MAN entry but maintained her excellent 2017 form on a circuit on which she has won twice.
In the baking Budapest heat Shane Brereton kept cool to fend off the advances of his rivals to score what initially appeared to be a brilliant fourth position overall and also seal the Promoter’s Cup silverware.
However, the British racer, who made a superb start from sixth on the grid to emerge in to fourth place at turn one was ultimately penalised twice for overspeeding. This bumped him down to 10th position overall and second in the Promoter’s Cup.
Several other drivers also received penalties for overspeeding and having 10-seconds applied to their finishing time. These included Albacete, Jose Rodrigues and Dominique Orsini.
This handed a fifth Promoter’s Cup win of the season to Andre Kursim’s Tankpool24 Racing Mercedes-Benz, while Brereton took a dejected second. Frankie Vojtisek completed the podium in his Czech Truck Racing Team MAN.
Ryan Smith was able to make the most progress in the race as he fought back from starting 14th to claim eighth at the finish in a brilliant display of passing on the notoriously difficult to overtake Hungaroring circuit. He made it by Andre Kursim, David Vrsecky, Gerd Korber and Jose Rodrigues in a thrilling display of overtaking.
This seemed to ensure a pole position for the reverse grid second race but after the overspeeding penalties were applied post-race it meant he was classified sixth just behind Sascha Lenz who came in fifth.
The front row of the grid for the second race therefore will see David Vrsecky start from pole for finishing eighth, while alongside him will Gerd Korber’s Team Schwabentruck Iveco.
In the Team’s results it was the Kiss and Kursim pairing that scooped the laurels for the tankpool24 Racing team ahead of Die Bullen von Iveco Magirus (Hahn and Korber) in second and the Buggyra 1969 pair of Lacko and Vrsecky in third.
The second race of the Hungaroring weekend is scheduled to take place at 17:20 local time.
