Spectacular performance at the Truck Grand Prix

The Truck Grand Prix on Nürburgring has always been the highlight of the truck-racing season. For this reason, the Lion Truck Racing team used this occasion to present itself in a very special manner: Besides bringing two own grid girls to the ring, they also showed up with a body-painting model – the most popular subject for numerous photogra- phers on site! Children were able to have the lion – the Lion Truck Racing logo – “tattooed” onto their arms or knees. Matching the great overall atmosphere, Steffi Halm was celebrated on stage by several thousand fans on Saturday evening during the concert at the Müllenbachschleife.

And of course, there were some races, too.
As new technology partner, the damper manufacturer Donerre now supports the Lions. The technicians develop the optimum set-up for both of the MAN race trucks.
Already at the first race on Saturday, Steffi got along quite well with it. Confidently, she repelled all of the attacks of her Hungarian MAN brand mate Benedek Major and achieved the 8th position fully focusing on driving. As a consequence, the pole position of the next race was hers!
The lap times achieved by the second pilot of the team, the Belgian Jean-Pierre Blaise, were similar to the ones of his teammate. He even almost managed to rank within the points when a drive-through penalty crushed his hopes.
On the starting grid for the second race, Steffi Halm stood beside her fellow countryman Gerd Körber (Iveco) on the first row of the grid. The clear winner of this duel between two generations – when Körber won his first title as European Truck Racing Champion, Steffi had just started her first year at school – was the Lion pilot! Although she was able to successfully defend the leading position throughout the first laps, she was still very satisfied with the result as the ranked 6th in the end. Jean-Pierre Blaise was pushed off by a competitor trying to overtake him. As a consequence, he wasn’t able to finish the race.

On Saturday night, a storm warning including the ring and surrounding areas was published. The team thus expected rainy conditions for the remaining races and consequently modified the set-up accordingly. But actually, compared to the days before, there were hardly any changes to the summer weather.
Early in the morning, Steffi Halm managed to classify at the SuperPole. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out that great anymore at the race itself: Steffi achieved position 13, Jean-Pierre Blaise ranked 14th.

At the final race with its spectacular collisions, the blond female pilot from Ammerbuch performed much better. In the end she got hold of the 9th position and thus earned two FIA points – her second-best result at the ongoing season! Jean-Pierre Blaise missed the points by a wee bit as he finished the race on position 12.
During the summer break, the team will continue to work on the trucks in order to improve their performance even more and will carry out test drives in Nogaro before heading to the Czech town of Most for the 6th racing event of the 2014 season on August 30 and 31.