A big incident for Aliyyah Koloc with one lap to go brought out a premature end to the final race of the 2021 season.
Race drama had already started before lights went out for the final time at Misano due to Anthony Janiec being disqualified from Race 3 thanks to a Parc Ferme infringement. Janiec, who should have started second in Race 4, was dropped to the back of the grid in the Race 3 standings, promoting Steffi Halm to eighth and René Reinert to seventh. This meant that it was Halm leading the field away from pole ahead of Reinert as the lights turned green.
But who started on pole didn’t matter as Sascha Lenz stormed through the field. Having started fourth, the German was up to first by the third corner, optimising on a mistake from Halm and disappearing into the distance. He would keep extending his lead until the red flag came out with one lap to go, giving him the win by over 11 seconds.
René Reinert celebrated his first podium of 2021, which was a brilliant way for the German driver to end the season. With Halm on the podium too, it was an all-German podium for the final race of the year.
Antonio Albacete did all that he could to keep the fight going for fourth in the championship, but with Jochen Hahn coming across the line behind him – Albacete fourth, Hahn fifth – there wasn’t enough of a deficit for Albacete to make up the points, giving Hahn fourth in the final championship standing.
2021 FIA European Truck Racing Drivers’ Champion Norbert Kiss had a great fight with Adam Lacko throughout the 11 laps of racing, managing to beat him across the line for sixth.
Another fantastic drive from Lukas Hahn saw him take another Goodyear Cup victory and eighth overall. He finished ahead of Jamie Andersen and Steffen Faas in class, who also rounded off the top ten.
Goodyear Cup Title Winner Shane Brereton was just outside of the points in 11th, ahead of Koloc (who brought out the red flag) and André Kursim, the final drivers to be classified.
Koloc had been racing a strong 12th when heavy smoke came out of her Freightliner caused by damage to the turbo charger. With only a lap remaining of the race, the Race Director waved red flags on the track and called an early chequered flag as it would have taken too long to clear the #29 from circuit side and get restarted for only one lap of racing. As over 75% of the race was complete, full points were awarded.
Téo Calvet and Ryan Smith were the only two non-finishers of the race after they were both forced back into the pits due to coming together in lap two. Calvet’s truck suffered heavy damage, finishing the season with two DNFs.
Full results of race 4 can be viewed HERE