Trento: Not a hill climb like many others
17,3 KM LANG Trento-Bondone is the longest mountain race in Europe. Instead of Reitnau, a few Swiss raced in Italy on July 1 and left a different impression. The winner of the day was Christian Merli, who holds the European Championship course record in Les Rangiers. It is the classic among the European hill climbs: In 1925, the Trento-Bondone hill climb was held for the first time, since [...]
It is the classic among European hill climbs: the Trento-Bondone hill climb was first held in 1925, and since 1959 the course has been 17.3 km long. This makes it the most demanding mountain race in Europe in terms of its length.
Memories of Peter Schetty
It often counted towards the European Mountain Championship, most recently in 2017. In 1969, Peter Schetty from Basel was the only Swiss to be immortalized as the winner of the day in a Ferrari 212 E.
The later Ferrari race leader was the first driver in the race to complete the course in under 11 minutes and held the record until 1973 in 10:58.61 (94.564 km/h). Mauro Nesti, who also often raced in St-Ursanne in Switzerland, was the first day's winner with an average of more than 100 km/h in 1990 on an Osella-BMW 2.0.
Too material murder for Ronnie Bratschi's Mitsubishi
This year, the 68th edition of Trento-Bondone counted towards the Italian Hill Climb Championship as well as the FIA International Hill Climb Cup.
Although Ronnie Bratschi is competing for the title in category 3 of the E1 touring cars, he preferred to start in Reitnau - not only for the sake of his main sponsor Eventcenter Seelisberg and the spectators, but also because of his Mitsubishi Evo VIII, which was not designed for such a track length.
Of his direct opponents for the title, only the Czech Karel Trneny traveled to the autonomous province of Trento. In the absence of the strongest Italians from Group E1, Trneny took the maximum points with his Skoda Fabia WRC (with unlimited power), which had been tried and tested on long rally tracks.
Despite this voluntary result, Bratschi remains at the top of the standings with 58 points ahead of the Czechs Cvrcek and Trneny with their Skodas (50 each) and the Bulgarian Niki Zlatkov in the Audi S1 quattro.
Finally a victory of the local hero Merli
In the absence of Simone Faggioli, who preferred the big and time-consuming Pikes Peak adventure, Christian Merli was the lone favorite. The track record holder of the Swiss European Championship race St-Ursanne-Les Rangiers (since 2017) absolutely lived up to this role.
With 9'21.53 the local hero remained far above Faggioli's fabulous record from last year (9'00.52) with special Pirelli tires (Merli's Avon degrade more at a distance). But he won clearly ahead of his compatriots Fattorini and Degasperi, all on Osella FA30-Zytek. Merli is the first day winner from Trentino in 48 years.
Christian Merli: "Twice I would have lost the car over the front axle at close. After that, I no longer paid attention to the time, but to the safe arrival at the finish. My Osella is built more for medium-fast and fast tracks. But of course I'm happy about the first home victory."
Respectable result from Fabio Nassimbeni
This year, three Swiss riders, all of Italian origin, took to the wheels of this mountain race held in only one race round.
The fastest was Fabio Nassimbeni, who drove a Porsche Cayman GT4 to 70th place overall among 168 starters with a time of 12'07.25.
Nassimbeni is Italian but feels Swiss and lives in Hadlikon-Hinwil. He is a board member of the ACS Zurich Section and made a name for himself as the overall winner of the Mini Challenge Switzerland 2008 and 2009.
Fabio Nassimbeni: "I've already competed in several hill climbs near my Italian home. Now it was just the right time for me to take part in Trento-Bondone. The atmosphere with 22000 spectators was terrific. This course has everything in it, but you can't just learn it by heart. You have to divide it up a bit. I only drove fast on sight, otherwise carefully. I'm very happy because if I hadn't had to drive behind a Sierra RS500 for a good three and a half kilometers before I could overtake it, the placing would have been better."
A proof of the knowledge of the route
It took Robert Servalli (128th place) more than a minute longer (13'22,61) to reach the finish line on the 1650 m high Monte Bondone in his BMW M3 GTR (E1+3000).
Fabiano Fenini, who is unknown in this country, needed only 1.6 seconds more than Servalli in his Citroën Saxo. The Italian winner in his class (N-1600) was 70 seconds faster with the same model. This shows what track knowledge and driving skills mean on this special track.
Because he had not completed or finished either of the two practice runs, Enzo Bottecchia and his Renault 5 Turbo were not admitted to the race run.
Christophe Weber, who finished an outstanding third in the two-liter race car class last year, was only on the starting list.
