Gurnigel: Victory to Berguerand, title to Steiner
BERGRENNEN GURNIGEL The decision at the 48th Gurnigel hill climb was narrowly in favor of Eric Berguerand. On the other hand, Marcel Steiner secured the championship title for racing sports cars early on his home mountain. In the rain and cold on Saturday, only the true fans were tempted out of the warmth of their homes. Although Sunday also started cloudy in the Gantrisch region, [...]
In the rain and cold on Saturday, only the true fans were tempted out of their warm rooms. Sunday also started cloudy in the Gantrisch region, but the weather improved noticeably.
This meant that the 230 or so competitors in cars and the 40 drivers of historic motorcycles were still able to show off their skills in front of an impressive crowd of spectators. Apart from the rollover of an undisciplined racing taxi driver, there were only the usual hill climb slip-ups and crash barrier contacts without personal injury.
The track dried out completely over the course of the afternoon. In the second run on the 3.7 km course to Gurnigelbad, the best times were ultimately only a good one and a half seconds above the course record.
Hundredths of a second decide the day's victory
As expected, local hero Marcel Steiner and defending champion Eric Berguerand fought a thrilling duel. The man from Valais did not let a slight slip-up in the final training session on Sunday morning throw him off his stride, but was eight hundredths ahead in the first race run on the still partially damp track.
In the second race, Steiner tried to turn the tables on the LobArt sports car, but the winner of previous years was again a tenth of a second faster in his self-modified Lola-Cosworth.
Although Steiner was annoyed about narrowly missing out on victory on the day, he was able to console himself by winning the racing sports car championship title early. This is his fourth after 2010, 2011 and 2012 (in the Osella FA30). Berguerand then set off on his winning run, which Steiner completed this year with one-day victories in Hemberg, Anzère and Oberhallau as well as winning the Swiss classification in St-Ursanne.
Third place overall went to Christoph Lampert from Vorarlberg in an Osella sports car with a two-liter Honda engine. Thomas Amweg, Simon Hugentobler and Robin Faustini took 4th to 6th place in their Formula 3000 racing cars, separated only by hundredths of a second.
The decision in the touring car category was postponed until next weekend's Châtel-St-Denis-Les Paccots hill climb. Frédéric Neff (Porsche/InterSwiss) and Roger Schnellmann (Mitsubishi/E1) confidently won their groups. Unless he fails completely in the final race, Neff will be champion for the first time.
Rolf Reding showed no weakness in the Swiss Junior Hill Climb Championship (report to follow). At the wheel of one of the eight identical Toyota GT86s, the 24-year-old from Immensee also won the fourth and final hillclimb race to take the title in superior style.
Finally, the Renault Classic Cup was firmly in Bernese hands. Philipp Krebs exploited the weight advantage of his lighter Clio II on his favorite track and relegated Denis Wolf and Ralf Henggeler in their newer Clio III to second place, as in Oberhallau. However, this was enough for Wolf to win the private one-make cup supported by Yokohama Switzerland for the first time.
