Adam Lacko took his third victory of the Hunagroring weekend with a brilliantly judged win in his Buggyra International Racing System Freightliner.
Adam Lacko took his third victory of the Hunagroring weekend with a brilliantly judged win in his Buggyra International Racing System Freightliner.
Extending his championship points lead to 58 points, Lacko vaulted from eighth position to the lead within the first three laps of the final 11-lap encounter this afternoon.
The victory also signalled Lacko’s third hat-trick of wins during a race weekend in the 2017 FIA ETRC as he dominated proceedings to win by a comfortable 4.3 seconds.
Gerd Körber led Sascha Lenz away from pole position and held the lead despite Lenz’s best efforts to find a way through at turn one.
There was drama heading in to turn two as contact was made between Jochen Hahn, Lenz and Shane Brereton. This in turn caused the unfortunate Antonio Albacete to head off in to the barriers in avoidance. The Spaniard re-joined last with a badly damaged Truck Sport Lutz Bernau MAN. Hahn later apologised to Lenz after a suspected braking issue caused the chain-reaction shunt.
By lap three Lacko was able to find a way through and in to the lead with a decisive move in to turn two. He was then able to pull clear and build a race winning platform to seal the 10-points.
Steffi Halm scored her third podium position of the weekend with another fine performance in her Reinert Racing MAN. She took second position after making a brilliant move on Körber around the outside of turn one.
It was the latest in a series of excellent performances by Halm, who took the runners-up position to add to her pair of third place finishes earlier in the weekend.
It was a tough race for reigning champion Jochen Hahn who seemed to fade after the first lap contact. The Iveco driver was overtaken by Steffi Halm, Norbert Kiss and David Vršecký in the early stages and eventually finished in fifth position despite applying massive pressure to Vršecký in what was a battle for fourth position at that time.
Körber was bumped down the order to seventh place when he momentarily lost control entering turn two and was then hit by Vršecký as he recovered. The Czech capitalised and gratefully took his first podium of the 2017 season. Körber eventually headed to the pits but was classified down in 15th place.
Vršecký was just able to hold off Hahn and also Ryan Smith who joined the fight for third in the later stages. The British driver though had to settle for fifth place in his OXXO Racing MAN after a promising yet ultimately frustrating weekend.
Lenz recovered from his first lap incident with Hahn and Brereton to place sixth, while the Promoter’s Cup duo of Shane Brereton and André Kursim took seventh and eighth overall.
It was a fantastic comeback drive by Brereton who came back through the pack to hunt Kursim down and pull off a brilliant hat-trick of Promoter’s Cup. This was despite having his steering knocked out of line after the first corner incident.
Another comeback drive came from Albacete, who scored points for ninth, while Erwin Kleinnagelvoort put in a fine drive to grasp the final point. This was especially noteworthy after he started the race from the pit lane. The Dutch driver also took the final rung of the podium in the Promoter’s Cup for the second time over the Hungarian weekend.
There was a disappointing end to his home race weekend for Kiss as the Tankpool24Racing Mercedes-Benz driver stopped on lap seven at the exit of the first turn.
There was joy again for Buggyra 1969 in the Teams category as Lacko and Vršecký combined to take the win from Halm and Lenz under the Team Reinert Adventures banner.
The sixth round of the 2017 FIA European Truck Racing Championship will take place at Autodrom Most next weekend.
Provisional Race Result below