Buggyra Racing's Adam Lacko took a convincing wet weather win in race three at Le Mans Bugatti on Sunday afternoon....
Adam Lacko celebrated his second victory of the 2019 FIA European Truck Racing Championship season after a masterful display in wet conditions at Le Mans Bugatti this afternoon.
The Buggyra Racing driver completely controlled the 11-lap race three event and led from lights-to-flag to claim the maximum points score of 20-points.
Lacko led away after the wet start procedure was employed which saw the field file down to the first chicane in single file.
The Czech ace was instantly able to open up a gap and cruised home to win by a margin of 5.5s at the chequered flag.
While Lacko was home alone at the front, the battle for the runners-up position saw plenty of close racing in the early exchanges as Andre Kurim defended the position from Antonio Albacete and Norbert Kiss.
While Truck Sport Lutz Bernau driver Albacete made a clean move in to second, Kiss fared less well and contact between the Hungarian and his former teammate Kursim saw the Tankpool24 Racing driver heading down the escape road at the final corner.
This saw Kiss lose a huge amount of time and re-join in last position. He eventually returned his Mercedes-Benz a few laps after the incident.
While Albacete pulled clear in second, the fight for the final podium position burned intensely between Kursim and a hungry Sacha Lenz and recently crowned champion Jochen Hahn.
The trio ran nose-to-tail for the majority of the race but the stalemate was broken on lap eight when Kursim and Lenz touched. This allowed Hahn to capitalise and surge through to take fourth position from the frustrated SL Trucskport30 driver.
Lenz got his revenge though on Kursim when he took back the position on the very next lap. This was just after Hahn had himself snatched third with a champions move on the Don’t Touch Racing IVECO.
Behind this fight there was another close battle to entertain the hardy fans as Oly Janes headed Steffi Halm (Team Schwabentruck IVECO) and his GRAMMER TRUCK CUP title rival Luis Recuenco (Trucksport Lutz Bernau).
Janes, driving arguably the race of his FIA ETRC career to date, held on to sixth overall until the penultimate lap when he was unable to resist the charging Halm.
Janes though still took the GRAMMER TRUCK CUP win to further extend his points lead, while Recuenco looked set for eighth and the semi-reverse grid pole for the final race but was spun out of the position by Anderson at the very final corner.
Anderson therefore came home ninth overall and second in GRAMMER, while Shane Brereton took ninth.
There were extraordinary scenes on the slowing down lap when Recuenco appeared to catch up to Anderson and drive him off the circuit in protest at the earlier altercation. This controversial incident was also placed under investigation after the race and Recuenco received a €5000 suspended fine for the rest of the season for ungentlemenly conduct.
Rene Reinert, who served a five place grid penalty after yesterday’s incident with Kiss, came through to round out the top ten.
Fabio Citignola put behind several frustrations from Saturday to have a competitive race in 11th but lost a top ten position to Reinert in the final stages. The young German though took third place in the GRAMMER standings after Recuenco’s last corner drama.
A furious Recuenco was classified 12th after recovering from his spin just ahead of a fierce fight between Erwin Kleinnagelvoort and Jose-Eduardo Rodrigues in 13th and 14th overall.
Jose Rodrigues, father of Jose-Eduardo, came in a disappointed 15th after an early spin which also affected T Sport’s Terry Gibbon who was classified 16th.
Dominique Orsini was the final classified finisher but managed to get his first GRAMMER points of the weekend in his newly modified Mercedes-Benz truck.
In the teams’ competition it was the Buggyra 1969 team that won ahead of Lowen Power and the Die Bullen von IVECO Magirus squads.
The final race of the weekend is set to take place at 16.35 local time.
Race Result HERE