Norbert Kiss came back from a five-second penalty to claim the 2021 Drivers’ Championship.
Starting from Pole Position, Kiss had the race in his hands at the start, but championship rival Sascha Lenz was not about to let the Hungarian race easily to his victory. Going into the first corner, Lenz made a brilliant move to get the race lead and began trying to extend the gap between them. Second was enough for Kiss to take the championship win, but Lenz would, at least, deny him taking it with a victory.
Kiss stayed right on Lenz’ bumper for the first five laps of the race, looking for a way past, but opportunity came along and Kiss was back into the lead. Unfortunately for the Hungarian, the pass was made easier because Jamie Anderson’s stricken truck brought out double yellow, which slowed Lenz down. Not noticing Anderson pulled up, Kiss retook the lead under yellow flags. The investigation into the infringement handed Kiss a five-second penalty that would be added to his race time at the chequered flag. Now Kiss had to worry about Jochen Hahn in third.
Hahn had been putting pressure on Kiss for second on track at the time of the illegal overtake, but now with clean air ahead Kiss could put his foot down and showcase the speed he has been mastering during the season. Lenz stayed close, but even he was nearly two seconds behind Kiss at the chequered flag.
With seven seconds between Kiss and Hahn, the Hungarian was only demoted by one place, putting him mathematically out of Lenz’ reach by one point and securing the championship with three races to go.
Steffi Halm had a great race holding off a 12-lap attack from Adam Lacko to finish fourth, with Anthony Janiec behind the duo. René Reinert spent most of the race with heavy damage to his IVECO truck, with body work rubbing against the back and pouring off smoke, but was able to keep going to take seventh at the end of the race.
Téo Calvet took five points from Shane Brereton in the Goodyear Cup, now only 29 points behind with a maximum of 40 left to claim as the Frenchman secured reverse grid pole for later today. With Brereton finishing ninth, he will not be promoted up the grid for Race 2, putting seven trucks between him and Calvet, his closest championship rival. Lukas Hahn had a great recovery drive after a bad start to take third in Goodyear Cup, tenth overall.
Aliyyah Koloc took 11th, finishing five seconds down on Hahn at the end of the race. She led the final finishers of Steffen Faas and Antonio Albacete across the line. Albacete lost a lot of time to the rest of the pack after going wide and ending up in the barriers. He was able to get out of the wall and return to the race, but with so much damage and lost time he was unable to recover much, crossing the line 1m11s behind Kiss.
It was a tough day for Jamie Anderson and André Kursim, who both did not finish the race.
Although the Drivers and Teams’ Championships are settled in the overall championship – going to both Kiss and Révész Racing – the Goodyear Cup title is still being fought for as well as second in the overall standings. The final event of today gets underway at 16:50 and promises to be another action-packed 12 laps of truck racing.
Full race 1 results HERE