This year's championship began to pick up speed now and three competitions are on within four weekends only. In the same high speed mechanics moved from Apennines to the Pyrenean peninsula, where the third episode of the 2006 race season took place on the circuit at Albacete, a Spanish town with a population of one hundred and fifty thousands.
Both Gerd and David started in an excellent manner, when they, in the first free practice, cut the last year's record per one lap as the only ones. But the worse thing was that, at the close of this practice, the gearbox in David's vehicle stopped working, and David had to wait to be towed to pits. Mechanics identified the defect immediately - the straight shaft between the gearbox and motor was broken! Meanwhile, Gerd again improved his record in the second free practice, David impatiently watched the time remaining to the end of the allotted twenty-minute limit. Finally, he left pits and went for a spin, when he succeeded to drive through no less than three timed laps. He reached the fifth best time among almost forty vehicles, which were scattered all over the circuit. However, in the timed practice, Östreich, Gerd's fellow countryman, put up a good show, when he was faster than Albacete, a native minion being encouraged by the grandstand. Gerd and David were third and sixth respectively, when the latter lost his duel with Pulič from Croatia by seven hundredths of a second.
However, in the following qualification race, David revenged the above defeat when he pulled ahead of Pulič just in the first lap. By quick leaps and bounds he caught the leading group of four with Östreich, Albacete, Gerd, and Hahn, and all they crossed the finish line in the unchanged order.
In contrary, the cup race was considerably more dramatic. Östreich availed himself of his pole position to lead first laps, but behind his back a hard bumper-to-bumper duel between Hahn and Albacete took place, but they failed to keep the track soon, and so Gerd got to the second position. Hahn succeeded to get back on the track just behind Gerd, but the Spaniard fell back behind David and Pulič in sixth place. Just in the following lap Gerd ran off the track for a short time, and "paid" for it by a drop by one position to third place. "Brakes did not work in line with my wishes, and Hahn took advantage of my short excursion to grass straightaway, I could not go at full blast," Gerd regretted after this race. For about three laps, David withstood attacks of Albacete, who overtook Pulič, but even David could not completely use all horses under the engine hood. Naturally, it was grist to Spaniard's mill, who got to fourth place ahead of David in the fifth lap of thirteen. "We tried to put new tires on back wheels, but they began to skid terribly after some first third of the race. There was no point in risking any greater loss; therefore, I went in a way to get sure points for my fifth place. I had sufficient information about my ever-increasing lead over Pulič in sixth place," David commented his own performance.
In the Sunday timed practice, Gerd secured a position in the first row of the qualification race starting grid for himself, when he fell behind Östreich by less than six hundredths of a second. David stood just behind Gerd in the second row next to Albacete. However, Spaniard's gearbox played him false and Albacete had to withdraw from the race. Our pair were breathing down the neck of leading Östreich, but mainly David had to closely watch in his rear-view mirrors hard attacking Hahn. In the sixth lap, David made a small mistake during braking, and Hahn won the third position. At that time, the leading group of four had a sufficient lead, and it seemed, that this standing could remain unchanged up to the end of this race. But few bends before the finish of the last lap, Östreich made a mistake when overtook one slower driver, and Gerd took the lead straightaway, and arrived safely for his winning points. Östreich was overtaken by Hahn as well, and even David could do the same. But he was on the outside of the last bend before the finish line, and so he lost this duel for third place.
The cup race was easy prey for Gerd, who won it in a start-finish manner, and during all thirteen laps he saw before him only those drivers, who lagged behind him by one or two laps. But he had to put the hammer down, because at the beginning Hahn, and from the eighth lap also Östreich didn't want to put up with silver and ran hard all the time. For a long time, David was fourth, but at the close he did not withstand Bösiger's attacks, who won points for his fourth place. David's weakened Buggyra (broken exhaust tube) had to repulse Albacete's attacks, who had a hell spurt, because he started into this race from the last position due to his qualification failure.
Almost four hours after the announcement of winners, Albacete and Lacko were disqualified from the cup race, as FIA commission found their track racing behavior at variance with rules of competition. It played into Gerd's hands, and so he took the lead in the cup for the first time in this racing season, by three pointy before Albacete and six points before Hahn. David is in fifth place lagging behind Östreich by four points.
