St-Ursanne hill climb: record duel of the Italians
MOUNTAIN RACING Simone Faggioli took his sixth consecutive stage victory in the Swiss European Mountain Championship race in the Jura. However, the new record holder is his great opponent Christian Merli. Behind the two Italians, Marcel Steiner finished third overall and touring car winner Reto Meisel cracked a sound barrier. No decision has ever been made so late in the battle for the day's victory in a Swiss mountain race. It was already [...]
No decision has ever been made so late in the battle for the day's victory in a Swiss mountain race. It was already shortly after 8 p.m. (!) when Christian Merli took the 5.18 km route from St-Ursanne to Les Rangiers under his wheels. Many accidents had caused extremely long delays by then.
Thanks to the good weather, however, the race could be completed as scheduled. The much cooler evening hour suited Merli just fine, as his Avon race tires on the shifted Osella race car worked better in these conditions than in the first race run in much warmer temperatures. These favored Faggioli in the Pirelli-tired Norma sports car, which the nine-time European champion drove to a new record time of 1:41.597. Merli was eight tenths behind.
The South Tyrolean seized his late chance and once again beat the defending champion's record by 67 thousandths, while Faggioli also missed his first time by just 125 thousandths. The track record set by Merli means a fabulous average of 183.7 km/h, and this on a track with three hairpin turns!
However, defending champion Faggioli remained ahead by six tenths of a second. The decision on the day's victory at the Swiss round of the European Championship has never been this close in decades.
Marcel Steiner and Reto Meisel win with the Swiss
As expected, Marcel Steiner with his LobArt sports car had no sting against the two professionals from Italy. However, the Bernese improved to a time of 1:48.7 in the evening run to secure third place overall as desired ahead of Fausto Bormolini (I) and Simon Hugentobler from Suhr with their Formula 3000 race cars.
With the resulting 25 points for the Swiss mountain championship, Steiner extended his lead over Eric Berguerand, who was absent in the Jura. The defending champion from Valais will be back next weekend in Oberhallau.
Reto Meisel also achieved his goal, experiencing a technically almost trouble-free weekend for the first time in the current season with his Mercedes SLK Eigenbau. The Aargauer was the first touring car driver ever to drive clearly under two minutes with 1:57.875 in the first and 1:59.398 in the second race run.
His successor as Swiss touring car champion could be Frédéric Neff, who remains unbeaten in the InterSwiss group and, like Meisel, improved his own track record from last year. The only one who could really still challenge him for the title is Roger Schnellmann, who realized the second-fastest touring car time in his E1 Mitsubishi.
