KISS VICTORIOUS AMDIST BRILLIANT DISPLAY OF #ONETRUCKFAMILY
Norbert Kiss adds another dominant win to his season after red flag delay at the start of the race.
The trucks got off the line well, Kiss maintaining his lead that wouldn’t be challenged as they dashed into the first corner. Antonio Albacete held off an attack from an advancing Jochen Hahn to hold onto his second place.
Contact between René Reinert, Bradley Smith and John Newell brought out the red flag as Reinert was spun around with heavy damage, double front puncture and unable to move his truck from the track. The 20-minute red flag gave Bradley Smith, who had been the truck making main contact with Reinert and heavily damaging his front bumper, a chance to complete repairs and get back in the race.
In a wonderful display of the #OneTruckFamily, mechanics from other teams came to Don’t Touch Racing’s aid to help with the rapid bumper repairs, overseen by FIA delegates. Smith was cleared to rejoin the race as the field was coming around for the second formation lap, a testament to the hard effort from his team and the paddock to get the truck in a safe state to be able to race.
The incident was referred to the stewards for investigation after the race.
On the second restart, Kiss once again shot off into the distance with Albacete holding off a bit of a tougher fight with Hahn. The grid settled down for most of the race, looking to be evenly spread, but in the last three laps the racing came alive.
Jochen Hahn was after Albacete’s P2 and had taken his time to reel the Spaniard in. He lined him up in the ninth lap, hanging onto his bumper through most of the lap and taking his move around the outside before the pair raced into the chicane. Holding position, Hahn knew the switch back would give him the inside line into the chicane. As did Albacete, conceding the position before the corner and relenting to P3.
Sascha Lenz and Lukas Hahn had pretty quiet races to take fourth and fifth respectively, Hahn adding another Chrome victory to his weekend.
José Eduardo Rodrigues looked like he too was going to make a late dive for Steffi Halm’s P6, getting right onto the back of her bumper in the final stages of the race. But as we’ve seen so many times from Halm, she pulled out the perfect defensive race to hang onto the extra points for her P3 battle in the Titan championship.
Mark Taylor had a patient race to Chrome P2, overall P8, which gives him reverse grid pole for the final race of the weekend.
After being tangled in the first lap incident, Newell went on to add another trophy to his weekend, taking the final step of the Chrome podium, P9 overall. He was in a tight battle with Clemens Hecker for the position.
Hecker holding him off for most of the race, but a fire in Hecker’s truck forced him to slow up just before the chequered flag. He still classified P10 as he was able to cross the chequered flag before he was forced to stop.
Luke Garrett came across the line P11, P5 in Chrome. He was ahead of the resurgent Smith, who pulled some incredible moves to climb back from almost being out the race to trying to keep his championship deficit to Taylor as small as possible.
Smith looked to make the pass on Garrett for P5 in the closing stages of the race, but Garrett wasn’t willing to give up easily. The pair raced hard but fair, coming three abreast as Luis Recuenco saw an opportunity to make two passes in one corner.
It got a bit messy as the trio moved to avoid contact with each other, Recuenco getting too bold and going into the gravel trap at the chicane under his own steam. He spun around, losing all progress he made, and crossed the line P14 behind Garrett, Smith and Stefan Kursch.
Christian Ruppert and Steffen Faas were the final classified drivers, with Faas falling from his on track position after hitting three penalty marker and getting a drive through penalty.
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