Jochen Hahn claimed the first pole position of the season at the Red Bull Ring today top set down a marker to his competitors in this season’s FIA European Truck Racing Championship.
Jochen Hahn claimed the first pole position of the season at the Red Bull Ring today top set down a marker to his competitors in this season’s FIA European Truck Racing Championship.
The experienced German racer set a best lap of 1m04.630 in his Team Hahn run MAN truck to head in an exciting Super Pole session at the famous Austrian circuit. In fine and sunny conditions Hahn’s time was 0.195s quicker than Rene Reinert (MAN), who will start on the front row of the grid alongside his countryman. The two have been close to each other all weekend and the rivalry is expected to continue in the race this afternoon.
On the second row of the grid will be local favourite Markus Altenstrasser put in one of his best performances in the Team Schwabentruck IVECO. In fourth and setting a very impressive lap was Ryan Smith. The British driver, who is being run by the OXXO Racing Team starts from his best ever starting position.
Former OXXO driver Norbert Kiss, now racing for the Tankpool24 Racing squad starts the first race from fifth after a very committed lap in the old spec Mercedes-Benz.
Sascha Lenz was placed sixth ahead of Adam Lacko (Buggyra Fat Fox) and French champion Thomas Robineau. Incredibly these three were separated by just 0.007s!
Rounding out the top ten was Gerd Korber in the Team Schwabentruck MAN with the new engine and Ellen Lohr in the Lutz Bernau MAN.
The twenty minute timed practice session which preceded the Super Pole session saw Rene Reinert at the head of the times. His 1m04.864s eclipsed Jochen Hahn’s best of 1m05.241s. Third in the timed practice was Adam Lacko for Buggyra International Racing System. The Czech driver was ahead of reigning champion Norbert Kiss. The top seven were covered by just under one second!
The fight to get in to the top ten and make it through to Super Pole was intense with Ellen Lohr (Lutz Bernau MAN) and Anthony Janiec (Lion MAN) fighting tooth and nail right up to the end of the timed practice session. It ended with Lohr just ahead of Janiec by 0.006s.
Those who didn’t make the top ten for the Super Pole were, as well as Janiec, were Frankie Vojtisek, Jiri Forman, Erwin Kleinnagelvoort (Scania) and Eduardo Rodrigues (MAN).
The first race of the 2016 FIA European Truck Racing Championship is scheduled to begin at 13.20 local time.
Be sure to follow the action with live timing and truck tracker here
A Quick look at the Top Ten....
1 Jochen Hahn 1m04.630s
2 Rene Reinert 1m04.825s
3 Markus Altenstrasser 1m05.339s
4 Ryan Smith 1m05.339s
5 Norbert Kiss 1m05.639s
6 Sascha Lenz 1m05.791s
7 Adam Lacko 1m05.794s
8 Thomas Robineau 1m05.798s
9 Gerd Korber 1m05.993s
10 Ellen Lohr 1m06.588s
See the full result here