Jochen Hahn took a lights to flag victory at the Hungaroring this afternoon...
Jochen Hahn swept to a conclusive victory in race one at the Hungaroring today after a dominant display in his Hahn Racing IVECO.
The reigning champion took his third victory from five races so far in 2019 to take the points standings lead previous held by Adam Lacko.
As the race got under way, it seemed that it the follow front-row starter Antonio Albacete had initially got the better of Hahn, but the German managed to keep the Truck Sport Lutz Bernau driver at bay.
As a result, Albacete lost further ground and dropped behind Adam Lacko’s Buggyra Racing-run Freightliner.
Lacko was running second on the road for nearly half of the duration of the race but was first penalised 10 seconds for overspeeding, before his penalty being later converted into a drive-through. That allowed Albacete a clear run through for the runners-up position.
Starting sixth, Jose Rodrigues largely stayed out of trouble, and moved ahead of Andre Kursim's Don't Touch Racing IVECO during the opening exchanges to gain a place when Lakco served his penalty.
Eventually, the Reboconort driver came home in third position scoring his first podium finish of the season.
Don’t Touch Racing’s Kursim was following Rodrigues closely but didn’t find a way by the Portuguese and eventually finished fourth, having started one place higher on the grid.
Local hero Norbert Kiss had a character-building afternoon, firstly qualifying a distant ninth and later fighting hard to make up places. Kiss spent most of the running trading places with Steffi Halm’s Team Schwabentruck IVECO in a battle for fifth.
Kiss and Halm were placed under investigation for overtaking under a yellow flag, when GRAMMER TRUCK CUP leader Jamie Anderson retired his MAN on the outside of Turn 2, but no further action was taken with Halm finishing fifth, one place ahead of Kiss.
Sascha Lenz, who made a mistake in qualifying and ended up eighth on the grid, brought his SL Trucksport30 entry home in seventh, one place ahead of Lacko who rejoined ninth following his penalty, but dived into the inside of Rene Reinert to make up a place and seal the provisional semi-reverse grid pole for the race later this afternoon.
Following the race Lacko was disqualified for third overspeeding.
Drama for Anderson, Glory for Janes
Ninth Oly Janes. The British ace scooped the maximum GRAMMER TRUCK CUP points score after Anderson’s retirement to take his second victory of 2019 for Buggyra Racing.
10th overall and second in the GRAMMER TRUCK CUP category went to Luis Recuenco in the second of the Truck Sport Lutz Bernau Trucks with the top three being completed by Terry Gibbon, who made his first FIA ETRC appearance of the season today.
Kiss’s team-mate Fabio Citignola clocked up more valuable miles to finish 11th, ahead of Eduardo Rodrigues in his Reboconort MAN and final finisher Dominique Orsini, who pitted early on in the race and ended up a lap down on the leaders.
Among the battle for teams honours, the glory went to Die Bullen von IVECO Magirus, with second going to Löwen Power and third to Reboconorot Truck Racing Team.