Hill climb: Mario Koch in the Honda Integra
BRAND CHANGE Another of last year's eight juniors in the Berg-SM has fixed his program for this year. Mario Koch will compete in the SuperSeries with Oski Kuhn's former Honda Integra. One of the opponents will be junior champion Rolf Reding in the Toyota GT86. After eight years Oski Kuhn had enough of this car and sold the orange [...]
After eight years, Oski Kuhn had had enough of this car and sold the orange Honda Integra Type-R to fellow racer Hermann Bollhalder. The garage owner from Wattwil is now making the proven car available to Mario Koch, who will use it to compete in the SuperSeries just like the previous owner.
Mario Koch: "Hermann Bollhalder already supports me in the Swiss Race Academy and asked me if I would be interested in renting this race-ready Honda from him. This is the most favorable option for me to be able to continue to compete in mountain races."
One of his class opponents will be Rolf Reding, who in turn rents a Toyota GT86 from the inventory of Eventcenter Seelisberg. Both of last year's Berg-SM juniors hope that the departure of Bergpokal winner Giuliano Piccinato (drives Lotus V6 Cup) will not have an effect on too low a number of participants in the two-liter series cars. There would be enough competitive cars.
The internal duel between Koch and Rolf Reding, who was undefeated in all four hill climbs in 2017, alone will ensure excitement.
Mario Koch: "I'm extremely looking forward to it and hope that I can catch up with him. My goal is to be at the front. I will definitely be better prepared than last year. As Seppi Koch's son, I felt a certain pressure and therefore made quite a few mistakes. Now I want to do better, although I have to start from scratch again because of the front-wheel drive. That's why I want to practice at a few slaloms before the hill climbs."
Kuhn anniversary with a new Peugeot 308
And Oski Kuhn? Even at 74, he is not thinking about retirement and is tackling his 50th full national racing season (all slaloms and hill climbs are planned) with a new Peugeot 308 GTi.
With the 1205-kg, 270-hp Turbo, Kuhn drives in the SuperSeries Competition group. Since the juniors also compete here (in a different class), he can always give Koch good advice along the way.
"The Peugeot goes like compressed air," enthuses the still vife Zurich master baker. "But I now only drive with semislicks from Pirelli, with which I can also travel and save myself the tedious change from road to race tires. I'm not going to be a world champion anymore anyway..."
