In the penultimate act of this year's championship, Ludovic and David wanted to follow up their successful performance at Zolder, where they managed to reduce Östreich's lead in the cup to an acceptable number of points, which held up a chance to Buggyra to defend the championship. Moreover, Ludovic has very good remembrance of Jarama, because in 1998 he secured his first position among super-trucks just on this circuit in the extremely dramatic last event of that racing season.
It seems, that this racecourse fits Ludovic well, because on Saturday morning he won the first two free practices, and under the hot noon sun he was just behind Buggyras of domestic Albacete and David. Also in the decisive timed practice he testified that he was serious about his rush to reach the European title after six years. Since the very beginning of dedicated forty minutes, he ensconced himself at the head, and he responded to each Östreich's speeding by further improvement in time per one lap. Their duel continued right up until final minutes, when the last Östreich's improvement was immediately overwritten by Ludovic's best time. However, FIA commissioners had a different opinion, as they declared this time null and void for alleged striking the bollards. So, the pole-position could be celebrated by the Deutsche Post team. Also David had problems in timed practices, because he was disabled from his duel with chronometer directly in the first lap for about fifteen minutes due to a broken electric fuse of the gearbox - simply speaking, he could not change gears. However, even after the repair, his engine had such output as in free practices, and David was placed fourth; this position guaranteed him a second line on a qualification race starting grid. As it was revealed after coming back to pits, the low engine output was partially caused by clogged jets of engine cooling.
David's Sunday start went wrong, despite of the fact that his fans had their hands up at the beginning, when he had a lead ahead of eight drivers in the first curve. But, immediately when he passed the finish line of the first lap, he saw a fatal board with an inscription "STOP and GO", and so he had to direct his truck to pits. "I could not see semaphore lights, and after the pace-car went aside, I responded to a slight Albacete's jerk, who went beside me. Moreover, the pace was frightfully low, and I could not slacken up," evaluated his own conduct after the race, where he was after all classified on the fourth place. The leading trio was too ahead, the same penalty for breaking the rules had to be served by Drückenmüller as well, and the trio of French outsiders dragged far behind still. Notwithstanding Ludovic's efforts, Östreich won, and Albacete came third.
The cup race had only one change in placement compared to the qualification - unfortunately at the expense of David, who was overtaken by Drückenmüller in the very first meters. According to David's opinion, it was a quite clear early start, therefore he did not try to overtake him and waited for a sign of penalty for Drückenmüller. But, commissioners saw nothing against racing regulations, and David waited in vain, even when the German driver knocked down bollards again and again and shortened his driving line by "cutting" the curves. At the close David was glad, that at least he got some points for his fifth place, in spite of overheated engine and red-hot brakes. Also Ludovic tried hard, but in vain, all thirteen laps to beat Östreich, who went, maybe surprisingly, precisely and he managed to take advantage of overtaking the weaker drivers to forge ahead continually.
In the running placement after nine events, Östreich has a lead o thirteen points ahead of Ludovic, which is pretty enough, but "at our place" it may not be so much, as our pilot said, when he truned back to pits after the race. Albacete is 15 points behind third David, meaning it could be commented in a similar way...
