KISS REIGNS SUPREME AS DISASTER STRIKES LENZ, HECKER AND GARRETT
It was another imposing lights-to-flag victory for the Hungarian champion Norbert Kiss as lap one disasters struck Sascha Lenz, Clemens Hecker and Luke Garrett, causing them all to not finish the first race.
Antonio Albacete tried to get the jump on Kiss off the line, but as the Hungarian has proved throughout racing this year, he was ready for whatever the Spaniard tried, covering off the move and keeping the lead into turn one. From there Kiss methodically stretched out his lead, crossing the line with almost four seconds on second-placed Albacete.
It did look for a few laps that Jochen Hahn was going to demote Albacete from his starting position, but although he tried Albacete defended his position masterfully. Crossing the line 1.3 seconds apart, the top three crossed the line as they started.
Fourth place overall belonged to José Eduardo Rodrigues, who didn’t put a foot wrong in the 12 laps of racing to add another Chrome victory to his 2024 stat sheet. Defending from Steffi Halm off the line, the Portuguese driver had a quiet race to his class win as Halm became occupied with racingAndré Kursim for fifth.
The Don’t Touch Racing driver made the pass and made it stick, being one of the few to make a position change during Race 1. Halm triedto catch her fellow countryman before the chequered flag but Kursim did enough to keep her 1.3 seconds behind.
Steffen Faas took seventh overall, second in Chrome, and will start Race 2 second on the grid alongside Lukas Hahn on reverse grid pole.The pair will be doing what they can to keep the two Titan drivers between them and class rival Rodrigues to try and stop him taking full points fromSaturday’s track action.
Mark Taylor, John Newell and Luis Recuenco were the last of the finishers from Race 1, with only Recuenco missing out on overall points in11th. The Spaniard seemed to have a difficult time on track, not seeming like a threat to anyone as he tried to find pace from his Iveco.
After failing to put the lap together in qualifying, Sascha Lenz cemented a bad day when an engine/ignition issue caused him to pull into the pits off the formation lap. Clemens Hecker appeared to have something break on his truck as he came through the Turn 8/9 chicane on lap one, pulling his truck off the track as a result. Luke Garrett also had an unlucky race as another steering issue - steering bolt failure - caused him to come to a halt at Turn 11.
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