Testing at Autodrom Most
The preparations for the 2023 season of the Goodyear FIA ETRC burst into life this week, as several teams took to the track to put their new and overhauled trucks through their paces.
Team Hahn Racing attended the test with two trucks, one for Jochen Hahn, who celebrated his birthday on Tuesday, and one for his son Lukas. The two drivers conducted solid laps with the six-time champion acting as mentor and tutor to Hahn Jr, who has ambitions to become a third generation truck ace soon.
Sascha Lenz presented his brand-new purple MAN truck for the first time. The SL-Trucksport 30 team worked 24/7 on the new truck since December and managed to get it ready just in time for the test runs at Most. Apart from a few teething problems on the first day it was a good run and Lenz and the team are getting up to speed with the new truck.
The German Schwabentruck team ran its driver Steffi Halm, getting valuable mileage in her #44 truck.
Two more Iveco’s joined the field in the hands of Don’t Touch Racing’s André Kursim and Luis Recuenco, who switched from a MAN in previous seasons to an overhauled IVECO.
The Don’t Touch Racing truck was fully dismantled and overhauled in the last few months and optimised for the season ahead. The team tested the improvements made and also tried out different set ups for driver André Kursim.
The second brand-new truck on track was Antonio Albacete’s MAN. The T Sport Bernau Team worked hard for the last three months putting together the new truck with improvements to the chassis. During the test days the team made great progress running qualifying and race distances with consistent lap times and working on the set up for Misano.
With plenty of track time during the test, the team took the opportunity to allow a different driver in the truck: Tony Albacete got the chance to try his hand at the wheel of the MAN getting in a few laps on the Czech circuit.
Antonio’s son is a racing driver himself, competing in national racing series. Being coached and advised by his dad, it was the first time for Tony to drive a race truck, and the Spaniard admitted he did not imagine it would be such a demanding drive in the truck.
Steffen Faas’ joined the test in his trusted Scania. The team revealed that they worked on developing the engine and chassis-suspension over the winter break.
The second Scania in Most was Clemens Hecker. The German and his team worked on the engine and steering in the off season and had no major issues during the test.
Three British drivers joined the line-up in Most. Promoter’s Cup Vice-Champion Jamie Anderson was happy to get some seat time in his right-hand steered MAN ahead of the season start.
John Newell, who made his ETRC debut last year at Le Mans, tested some improvements to the truck with new axles, braking and steering system.
Mark Taylor joined the Most test clocking up the miles in his new MAN truck.
Check out some images from testing HERE
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