Lights-to-flag win for Kiss in Race 3
Converting another pole position to race victory, Norbert Kiss has claimed his 70th Goodyear FIA ETRC victory.
The success didn’t come as easily as it did yesterday in Race 1, with both Sascha Lenz and Adam Lacko putting pressure on the Hungarian for the first lap of the race. Lenz looked like he had put himself in the position to hold on around the outside to make a move for the lead, but Kiss’ pace in his Revesz Racing MAN truck was too great and the Hungarian managed to thwart the attack by the end of lap one.
From there, Kiss slowly pulled out a 5.4 second advantage which he took comfortably over the chequered flag. Lenz quickly pulled himself out of attacking range of Lacko – finishing 7.4 seconds ahead of third place – dropping the Czech driver into a battle with Jochen Hahn.
Hahn and Lacko spent most of the final laps fighting for position, but it was Hahn who came out on top, stealing the final step of the podium. Lacko had to settle for fourth with the pair split by 1.3 seconds at the line.
Jamie Anderson had another great first race of the day, not only taking another Promoter’s Cup victory but rounding off the top five overall. He broke away from Shane Brereton and Teo Calvet in the early stages of the race when Calvet picked up front right damage in a racing incident with Steffen Faas and Jose Rodrigues, who were all battling for position. The Brit fended off attacks from Steffi Halm to hold onto fifth, the driver of the #44 truck chasing him for position until the flag fell.
Andre Kursim had another quiet race to finish seventh, with Brereton taking second in Promoter’s Cup and lining himself up on reverse pole for Race 4.
Faas took the bottom step of the podium after passing Calvet at the beginning of the race. Although racing with damage, Calvet continued to take the final points from the overall top ten (fourth in class). His great defensive driving prevented a recovering Antonio Albacete from scoring any points in Race 3, but provided an entertaining final few laps of wheel-to-wheel racing for the spectators around the Slovakia Ring.
Albacete fell behind Jose Rodrigues before the end of the race, with the Spaniard 12th ahead of Luis Recuenco and Clemens Hecker.