Large Squad in Navarra with 3 Lion Race Trucks

At the second run on the Circuito de Navarra, Steffi Halm competed with a completely new MAN race truck. Despite the heat with temperatures exceeding 30° C, there were no major problems. Last year, Steffi already got along quite well on this extremely challenging track, but this year she improved even more. Altogether, it was her most successful weekend. She completed it ranking 8^th on the overall standings!

After having classified twice at the superpole qualifying, she accomplished position 6 twice and ranked 9^th once thanks to her extraordinary cleverness and despite spectacular crashes and the restart of one of the races!

Besides Steffi Halm and for the first time this season, the Spanish pilot Javier Mariezcurrena took part as well. For the first time, the third driver of the team, Artur Ardavichus from Kazakhstan, usually only competing at the national championship French Truck Racing Cup, participated at a FIA ETRC race as a race-by-race pilot.

Mariezcurrena started the first race from the 12^th position on the grid and fought himself up to the 8^th rank. This implied the pole position for the next race on his home track! Being supported by numerous fans, the team hoped for a position among the leaders. Due to problems with the engine, it didn’t work out. Nonetheless, the spectators were able to congratulate their fellow countryman the day after for a position on the podium of the classification of the Spanish championship!

Artur Ardavichus started the first race on Saturday directly behind his experienced teammate Mariezcurrena. Unfortunately the Portuguese Renault pilot José Souza ran into his truck quite heavily. As a consequence, Artur Ardavichus was unable to finish the race and had to drop out early. Despite having to start the next race from the pit lane, the Kazakh kept his cool and stirred up the field from behind all the way to position 12! With a total of 21 trucks on the track, that’s a great result for him!

On Sunday he was able to defend the 14^th position he earned during the qualifying. At the last curve of the last race, he even managed to snatch away position 12 from the German MAN pilot Ellen Lohr after several ambitious attempts to overtake her!

All in all, the Lion Truck Racing team is very pleased with this race weekend – and so are the impressed guests of Lion, customers of the partner Meritor.

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