JOHN NEWELL HOLDS OFF TITANS FOR FIRST ETRC WIN
John Newell has taken his first overall victory in the Goodyear FIA European Truck Racing Championship, holding off Steffi Halm and Jochen Hahn.
Starting from reverse grid pole, John Newell was determined to claim his maiden overall victory in the Goodyear FIA ETRC. He held the inside line into the first corner to shut out Bradley Smith around the outside, his exit close to perfection as he left his Chrome rival in the mirrors and began to build a gap.
It helped Newell that Smith was quickly swarmed by the Titan drivers, giving buffer to Newell’s lead, but it was up to him to drive the perfect race and secure overall victory as well. After the first lap, he had a gap of 2.5s, something he was able to maintain until the last three laps.
The gap had climbed to 3.2s before a small mistake saw Newell drop a second on the chasing pack. It could have been the opening Halm needed to deny him overall victory, but after spending the race fending off Jochen Hahn, Norbert Kiss and José Eduardo Rodrigues – who joined the back of the podium fight with two laps to go – she was too occupied with holding her position rather than chasing Newell down.
“I’m a bit lost for words, I mean, what a feeling,” Newell said, reflecting on his first overall victory. “It’s great for the team because of the hard year we’ve had. We’re in the [Chrome] fight. It’ll go to the last race tomorrow, but I can’t wait for it."
Kiss couldn’t find a way around Jochen Hahn and had to settle for P4 ahead of Rodrigues. The points positions were completed by Chrome P2 Lukas Hahn, P3 Bradley Smith, René Reinert, Sascha Lenz and P4 in Chrome Mark Taylor.
After a tough day, Lenz will need everything to fall in his favour tomorrow to keep his hopes of P3 overall alive. His recovery drive to score in Race 2 after a DNF in Race 1 was strong, but Halm’s podium finish extended her advantage to 12 points.
Clemens Hecker finds himself still mathematically in the Chrome fight but he’s now very much on the back foot. Finishing 13th overall, seventh in class, he is now 21 points behind leader Smith, 10 off closest rival Taylor in third.
The race wasn’t without incident for the Scania driver, having got caught in a collision trying to make up places off the start. He continued with some damage, but it put him out of contention to fight up the front of the class. Hecker was also given a ten second penalty for overspeeding on the start which ruined any chances he had of scoring good points in the second race.
Jonathan André and Luke Garrett had relatively quiet races to take P5/6 in class, with Stefan Kursch and Simon Reid the final two to take the chequered flag. Craig Reid was classified as he entered the pits on the final lap of the race, but both he and Steffen Faas were unable to complete the race as punctures from debris on track ended their races early.
Home favourite Antonio Albacete’s race ended in disappointment when a suspected contact damaged the prop shaft on his MAN, forcing him to retire.
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