Adam Lacko became the fourth different winner of the Nogaro weekend this afternoon as he guided his Buggyra International Racing System truck to an exhilarating win.
Adam Lacko became the fourth different winner of the Nogaro weekend this afternoon as he guided his Buggyra International Racing System truck to an exhilarating win.
With title rival Jochen Hahn finishing a close second, it means that the 2016 FIA European Truck Racing Championship standings could not be closer as Lacko heads Hahn by just two points. After one third of the season completed the Czech and the German can only just be separated in what is turning out to be the closest fight for the title in many years!
The fourth race started in spectacular fashion and just like in race two the reversed grid pole sitter Eduardo Rodrigues was swamped at the front of the field. Sascha Lenz sprinted in to the lead but it was very short-lived as local hero Janiec soon made his way through and it was the Lion Truck Racing driver who crossed the line at the end of the first tour at the head of the field.
There were some hard luck stories after the first lap as Ellen Lohr and Rene Reinert both lost out after excursions and resumed in 10th and 11th places respectively. Reinert had to get out of a gravel trap to continue before pitting and retiring with damage to his truck.
With Janiec out front and building a small gap, his teams title partner Sascha Lenz was the proverbial ‘cork in the bottle’ as he held back Steffi Halm, Adam Lacko and Jochen Hahn who ran a close third, fourth and fifth.
The pressure on Lenz was intense but the German coped well, even when Halm made a bid for second place on lap six. The effort backfired though and Halm ran wide losing two positions to Lacko and Hahn in the process.
The very next lap the pressure told on Lenz as he also made a mistake and ran wide, allowing Lacko, Hahn and Halm through.
As soon as Lacko was released by Lenz’s error the Buggyra International Racing System driver put the hammer down and immediately started to deliver purple sector times and fastest laps in a bid to catch Janiec.
The mission was soon accomplished and Lacko was soon on Janiec’s tail. Hahn and Halm also towed up to make it a thrilling four-way fight for the lead in the closing stages.
Lacko wasted no time in making his way past Janiec on lap ten and he made a clean and decisive move. Hahn was instantly through as well to set up a spectacular fight between the two title rivals. However, Lacko had enough of a gap, despite Hahn setting a blistering 1m54.923s fastest lap on the penultimate tour in a bid to catch the Czech.
Janiec held on to third position to delight the local crowd as the chequered flag fell. The Frenchman defended robustly from Halm in the last few laps and the two finished just 0.351s apart as they crossed the finish line almost as one.
However, a post-race penalty for Janiec due to both over-speeding and driving standards gave Halm the third position and dropped Janiec back down the order to a bitterly disappointed ninth place.
Lenz came home a rather lonely fourth place on the road, while Jiri Forman celebrated his best finish of his nascent career so far with fifth position.
Ellen Lohr recovered from losing time on the first lap and overtook both Erwin Kleinnagelvoort and Eduardo Rodrigues to move up to sixth position. The Truck sport Lutz Bernau driver was on schedule to also take another place from Forman but just ran out of time and was a mere 0.385s behind at the chequered flag.
Kleinnagelvoort initially took his Scania to a season best position of seventh ahead of Eduardo Rodrigues in eighth place.
In the Teams title chase Buggyra 1969 (Lacko and Forman) were first, ahead of WOW Women on Wheels team (Lohr and Halm), completing the podium was the Lion-Lenz alliance of Janiec and Lenz.
Post-race penalties alter final result
Additional penalties for start infringements were also handed out after the race altering the initial provisional result. As well as Janiec, 30-second penalties were also given to Halm, Lenz, Rodrigues, Lohr and Reinert. All of this meant that Jiri forman was promoted to third place, with Erwin Kleinnagelvoort taking a career best fourth place.
Points after 4 events and 12 races
-
Adam Lacko 146pts
-
Jochen Hahn 144pts
-
Rene Reinert 91pts
-
Anthony Janiec 76pts
-
Norbert Kiss 61pts
-
Steffi Halm 54pts
-
Sascha Lenz 46pts
-
Gerd Korber 44pts
-
Ellen Lohr 33pts
-
Jiri Forman 30pts