FIRST SLOVAKIA RING WIN GOES TO KISS
Converting his hard-fought pole position to race victory, Norbert Kiss added another 20 points to his 2024 Goodyear FIA ETRC title campaign.
Holding his pole advantage on Jochen Hahn off the line, Kiss proceeded to have a flawless race, coming across the line seven seconds ahead of his German rival.
The grid spread during the eight laps around the Slovakia Ring, giving third place to Antonio Albacete who managed Sacha Lenz’ attack during the first couple of laps. After that, the length of the lap worked to Lenz’ disadvantage, not allowing for another chance to reel in the Spaniard and make a late challenge for the podium.
André Kursim, Steffi Halm and Chrome-class winner José Eduardo Rodrigues once again found themselves in a battle for fifth on track. Halm had the advantage off the start, getting past the Chrome driver and getting into some wheel-to-wheel battles with fellow Titan Kursim. Light contact between the two caused no damage to either truck, but it did allow Rodrigues to repass Halm putting himself between her and Kursim for on track sixth.
Try as she might, Halm couldn’t find another way past the Portuguese driver, taking seventh on track, sixth in Titan class, and a front row start for the reverse grid race in a couple of hours.
Steffen Faas, second in Chrome, will sit on reverse pole after crossing the line eighth.
There was a battle for second in Chrome between Faas, John Newell and Mark Taylor that raged throughout most of the eight laps of racing.
It all came to a blow when Newell, at the time second in class ahead of Faas and Taylor, made contact with Luis Recuenco. Race stewards deemed the incident Recuenco’s fault, who was handed a five-second penalty for the altercation that slipped Newell behind Faas.
The Brit raced hard to try to regain the position, going all the way to the line where he missed out on second place by two tenths. Taylor trailed just behind, crossing the line half a second behind his patriot.
Even before the penalty, Recuenco finished the race 11th ahead of Luke Garrett in 12th. Garrett was having an OK race until a penultimate lap off that saw him drop behind Recuenco.
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