This week the T Sport Bernau team travelled to Slovakia for round 3 of the FIA ETRC. After and eventful weekend at Hungaroring our mechanics had to spend one week in Hungary to repair the remaining damage from Saturdays collision. We would like to extend our thanks to PE, BPW, TT Parts and Galambos Trans Kft. who supported us with the organisation of the necessary parts and provided a good workshop for us to work in.
Once all the repairs had been completed and the truck was ready for the next race the team headed back to our main workshop in the UK for couple of days before we flew back to Hungary where we collected the truck and continued the journey to the Slovakiaring.
We arrived in good time on Wednesday evening and were greeted by extremely hot weather with the temperature reaching over 35 degrees Celsius with a forecast for even more warm weather on the way.
On Thursday we setup our pit area in the paddock before Antonio participated in an official pre-event press conference on Friday where we also had our race truck on display.
Before the official race programme started on Saturday morning we welcomed some guests from Varta who were joining us for the day.
Qualifying soon came around with Antonio once again progressing to the superpole session eventually securing 6th place on the grid for the start of the first race of the weekend. During the race Antonio was locked in a close battle with Andre Kursim but despite his best efforts he had to settle for a 7th place finish.
Due to the reverse grid format Antonio would start the second race of the weekend on the front row with only Jamie Anderson lining up in front of him. Antonio fought hard and stuck right on the back of Jamie Anderson throughout the race. Norbert Kiss once again showed his skill, slicing his way through the field with ease, that was until he reached Antonio, who managed to hold off Norbert for longer than any of the other competitors however just before the end of the race Norbert managed to pull off a move on Antonio, pushing him down to 3rd position, which is still a great podium finish and some good championship points in the bag.
Overnight our race technicians made a few changes to the setup of the T Sport Bernau truck to try and optimise the handling set up for day 2 of racing. This was a fruitful exercise with Antonio posting faster lap times on Sunday mornings qualifying and securing 5th position on the grid ready for the next race.
In the race Antonio got off to a really good start, keeping his P5 position, however following an incident with Jamie Anderson Antonio was pushed wide and ultimately tumbled down the order. Ever the professional Antonio regained his composure and managed to regain some of his lost places but after another coming together with Teo Calvet, Antonio had to be settle for a P12 finish. With the reverse grid format only applying to the top 8 finishers Antonio was unable to take advantage of that and had to begin the last race of the weekend in 12th position. However all was not lost as there was an incident with some of the front runners seeing 3 drivers falling to the back of the pack, promoting Antonio to 8th place. Antonio continued to fight hard and managed to gain another place, passing Steffen Fass to secure a 7th place finish scoring some more valuable championship points.
After another eventful weekend Antonio now stands in 5th position on the overall championship standings. Despite some lower place finishes the team are confident that Antonio and the T Sport Bernau truck are still able to comfortably fight within the top 5 trucks. In two weeks time we will be racing at the famous Nürburgring, the highlight event of the first half of this year’s championship. Antonio and the team look forward to securing more championship points and hope to provide our fans with some more great racing action to watch, both at the circuit and online via the live stream.
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