Albacete Wedged In between Buggyras of David and Markus
The nearly April weekend brought about not only a rapid change of the weather between the two racing days but also a change in the top ranking of the championship for the first time this season. Markus Bosiger became king in the Saturday sunny weather. In the Sunday rain the dominating figure of the Albacete track was the domestic racing driver Antonio Albacete! David Vršecký has remained the leader of the championship thanks to his standard performance in this season.
The mastery of the Buggyras in the Saturday time practice has already become a tradition. First David achieved the best time ahead of Markus, and then in the second time practice the two drivers swapped their roles. In the close of the Saturday practice David experienced a narrow escape for in the last “cooling” round his transmission failed. The mechanics then had to do their best and exercise all possible effort to let David take part in at least part of the second practice. But David managed in seven minutes to achieve the second best time. As expected Albacete improved in the second practice and squeezed in between Markus and David. However, the advantages of the first three ranged around thousandths of seconds. It is interesting to note that all of them showed their maximum in the first racing round already. The fourth Hahn of Germany was more than a second slower.
David made the best start into the qualifying race, which made him follower of Markus as soon as after the first curve. Thus Albacete, to great dissatisfaction of the viewers, had to look at the backs of the two Buggyras. The leading trio soon developed a considerable distance from the rest of the field and reached the finish without any serious attempts at a change in the ranking. Last year ´s discovery Belloc of France rushed in fourth with the loss of three seconds. The driver still looking for his form, Hahn, finished fifth with a large distance from the top ranks. “I think that in the beginning my truck went wonderfully. Towards the end I began to feel that my rear tyres were worn too much. The bitumen was too harsh for my style of driving,“ said David about the first ride.
Also the start of the cup race was successful for our team and they safely held their starting positions. However, soon after the beginning of the second round Albacete ran hard into David, breaking his left rear tyre. Even though David, luckily, left the track for a short while only, he had to slow down a little. This disadvantage was discovered by Belloc and Hahn in the course of the next two rounds and they moved to the third and the fourth rank. In the final stage of the thirteen-round race Albacete even tried to attack Markus, but the latter driver ´s professional style did not allow any change in the ranking. David ended fifth despite his great handicap and was eventually even satisfied with the result: “Of course the rostrum would be better, but on the other hand, the whole pair could be broken, leaving me without any points at all. I do not want to be a talebearer, but if I did something similar, I would certainly be penalised!“ Albacete ´s incidents with both Buggyras were eventually even discussed largely by the FIA commissioners. But the result could be expected – the ranking was left without change… Only everybody were warned that such incidents would in future be punished!
On Sunday Albacete took the baton from Markus. The domestic pilot pleased the tribunes by taking the best position in the time practice already after a close defeat of David. Markus achieved the fourth best time. However, after start of the qualifying race the current European champion collided with Belloc, France, and had to leave his Buggyra off the track with the front tyre empty. David began to chase Albacete and the two of them soon let the rest of the field far behind. Their advantage over the third Hahn reached nearly twenty seconds.
Before the start of the main race the sky became overcast and a heavy downpour began. The colourful snake started with two rounds behind the Follow Me car. The flying start was very careful and Albacete took the lead without hesitation. The second rank was held by David before Hahn. This trio soon developed a considerable advantage and it soon became clear that the winner would be one of the three. The tempo was soon too high for Hahn, while David, on the contrary, approached the domestic favourite. When he seemed to attempt overtake, his car slipped and turned round two times. That allowed Hahn to take the second rank. David recovered soon and in the course of mere two rounds made up for the loss behind the German. Nothing more could happen, though, because the race was terminated preliminarily three rounds before the scheduled finish after a serious accident of one of the outsiders. Due to the persisting heavy rain the remaining rounds were not completed at all. ”Today was at peace, the second position in the qualifying race calmed me down. I could finish second in the cup race too nut unfortunately my aquaplaning resulted in a good “pirouette”. The truck, luckily enough, remained on the track, and so I only lost one position and remained on the rostrum,“ added David soon before he jumped up to receive the cup for the third position. Markus heroically fought in the downpour from the twelfth row, overtaking one outsider after another, to eventually get to the scored position after five rounds. He was greatly damaged by the shortened race, for he would certainly have achieved more than just the eighth place.
The results from Albacete first changed the raking in the top positions. While David has remained the first, Albacete moved to the second position with the loss of mere three points. Markus is another eight points behind. The fourth position was taken over from Belloc by Hahn, whose loss after the first David is over forty points. In the team competition Buggyra is the first, with a great advantage, before the second MAN.
