Bird’s Motorsport -
Birds On The Ball In Belgium
The eighth round of the 2009 FIA European Truck Racing Championship took place last weekend (Sept.12/13) on the very demanding 4kms Circuit Zolder in Belgium. Despite some chilly weather the track remained dry for all the actual races – and the 14,000 audience was well entertained by two days of non-stop heavyweight action!
Chris Levett was certainly on good form in the Bird’s Motorsport MAN – finishing the weekend with an impressive tally of 33 championship points after four top-five results.
In practice on Saturday Levett clocked a best lap time of 1m.58.843s. (Average speed 121.16km/h) to qualify in 5th place for the starting grid of Championship Race One.
The rolling start of C1 saw Chris making a good getaway to hold his position – hard on the heels of Jochen Hahn and Markus Bosiger. When the Swiss driver started to slow with tyre trouble Levett quickly passed the Freightliner – and advanced to 4th place, the position he held all the way to the flag.
Race 2 on Saturday afternoon featured the ‘Reverse Grid’ format for the top 8 drivers – which put Chris on row 3 of the starting grid.
After some excitement in the early laps as the quicker drivers like Levett picked their way past slower traffic the Bird’s MAN was positioned 5th, close behind the Renault of Vojtisek. Levett soon found a way through and moved up to record another 4th place finish.
The qualifying session on Sunday morning showed that the track conditions were actually slightly slower than the previous day and Levett was unable to beat the 2-minute barrier, clocking a best practice lap of 2m.00.107s. (119.89km/h). Nevertheless that still placed him 6th fastest – on row three of the starting grid for Championship race 3.
At the start Chris stormed through the opening turn in 6th position – right on the tail of his Austrian rival Allgauer. The duo of MAN’s continued to circulate in very close company – and both drivers were promoted one place when 4th placed Bosiger dropped out on lap 5 with a front tyre failure.
By half-race distance Levett was getting frustrated at Allgauer’s delaying tactics and succeeded in getting alongside the yellow MAN. However his experienced rival fought back and for another lap Levett found himself staring at the back of the yellow truck.
Finally Chris found another passing opportunity and got his nose ahead of his rival – taking over in a fourth place that he held through to the chequered flag at the end of lap 12.
The final outing of the weekend produced another good result for Levett as he claimed a fighting 5th – sandwiched between the hard-to-pass Renault of Vojtisek and his old British rival Stuart Oliver. Despite looking everywhere for a gap Chris was unable to pass the Czech driver Vojtisek – and he also had to guard his rear end carefully with Oliver seeking any possible passing opportunity.
At the finishing line this trio was covered by a margin of just 1.69 seconds.
There is no let-up in the hectic race schedule for the Bird’s Motorsport team now; the action re-commences in just 6 days time in France at Le Mans(September 19/20) – with the final round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship taking place at Jarama (Spain) on October 3/4.
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