Sascha Lenz in his self-run SL Trucksport MAN stole the show on Sunday’s Super Pole session by clinching surprise pole position. His first this year.
Sascha Lenz in his self-run SL Trucksport MAN stole the show in Sunday’s Super Pole session by clinching a surprise but richly merited pole position. It was the young German’s is first ever non-reverse grid pole.
It was a tremendously close session with just 0.296s covering the top five and four different manufacturers filling out the front three rows of the grid.
All eyes were initially on Steffi Halm, as yesterday’s pole-winner went only fifth-quickest initially and was on a hot lap in the final moments of the session. The Reinert Racing MAN driver failed to improve her time but it was Lenz, who was initially third-fastest, whose superb final lap earned him a debut pole for race three of the weekend.
Lenz will be joined by Adam Lacko (Buggyra International Racing System Freightliner) on the first row of the grid. The championship leader managed to bounce back after a rather low-key Saturday at Le Mans that resulted with seventh on the grid, followed by seventh and eighth places in both of the races.
Norbert Kiss in his Team Tankpool24 Racing/Mercedes-Benz, and Jochen Hahn (Team Hahn Racing/Iveco) will share the second row of the grid. Halm remained fifth and will be joined on third row of the grid by David Vršecký in the second of the Freightliners.
The Promoter’s Cup overall leader José Rodrigues, in his Reboconorte MAN, will start seventh ahead of Gerd Körber (Team Schwabentruck Iveco) and two other Promoter's Cup competitors, Shane Brereton (TOR Truck Racing/MAN) and André Kursim (Team Tankpool24 Racing/Mercedes-Benz).Halm heads Timed Practice.
Halm tops Timed Practice
In the earlier Timed Practice session, Steffi Halm went quickest of all to back up her pace from yesterday. Norbert Kiss went second-fastest, just 0.2s down on Halm’s time, emulating yesterday’s Super Pole front row.
The top three was completed by Jochen Hahn, with Adam Lacko going fourth-quickest. The remaining top ten places, which guaranteed a place in the later Super Pole session, went to Gerd Körber, David Vršecký and the trio of Promoter’s Cup front-runners – José Rodrigues, Shane Brereton and André Kursim.
British series regular David Jenkins was the first driver miss out on the Super Pole sessions in 11th overall. Places 12th to 15th went to Erwin Kleinnagelvoort (EK Scania), Cees Zandbergen (Scania), José Eduardo Rodrigues (Reboconorte MAN) and José Goncalves (Volvo).
Antonio Albacete’s qualifying was compromised by a brake cooling problem. Yesterday’s podium-finisher didn't set a time initially, but once he had done, he was ninth. Shortly afterwards though his time was deleted due to hitting too many penalty markers. This means he will start from the rear of the race three grid.