Horag Racing: Only foreign opponents for Hotz
SURPRISING IN THE SCC Where Benjamin Hotz competes in the Sports Car Challenge, he dominates the action in Horag Racing's Ligier Turbo. It's good that he can compete with stronger opponents from other series. Sports Car Challenge, which was once popular with Swiss drivers and circuit race organizers, is unfortunately only a shadow of its [...]
The Sports Car Challenge, which was once popular with Swiss drivers and circuit race organizers, is unfortunately only a shadow of its former self, although there are actually enough affordable vehicles for private drivers. Already in 2019, of the eleven drivers ultimately classified in two divisions, no more than six or seven were ever seen at a race.
Mixed race series
Things didn't get any better in the exceptional year 2020. Thanks to the merging with other racing series like the P9 Challenge and the Spezial Tourenwagen Trophy (STT), decent fields of touring cars, GTs and sports cars are coming together.
Not just in the thick of it, but right at the front, is Benjamin Hotz with the Ligier turbo developed in-house at Horag Hotz Racing in Sulgen in collaboration with Oreca in Magny-Cours (F).
Please after me
Where the Thurgau native is at the start, he already had no opponent in Division 2 up to two liters last year. In the meantime, everyone from Division 1 has also had to capitulate.
At the inaugural race in mid-July at the Lausitzring, only former DTM factory driver Uwe Alzen competing in the STT was over 25 minutes faster in both sprint races than the son of former Swiss race car champion and company founder Markus Hotz.
Defending champion Peter Kormann, with a more powerful PRC Audi turbo, had no stab at the Swiss team's second appearance in Brno.
Horag Racing decided not to take part in Hockenheim in between because there would not have been enough time to procure and install spare transmission parts from Sadev.
Only one was faster
However, Hotz was not bored in the Czech Republic. Three competitors from the FIA Eastern Europe zone fought with the Swiss on the Masaryk Ring for the podium places in the overall classification.
Benjamin Hotz: "In Brno I had to bite. If we are already so few from the SCC, which I find a pity, I just orientate myself on the other, bigger opponents in the overall ranking."
Hotz only lost out to Slovakia's Miro Konopka in a Ligier LMP2 in both races after he had been right at the front in qualifying. In the first race Hotz almost spun, in the second he complained about a bit too much oversteer after two leading laps.
He had the two Czechs Petr Lisa (Norma LMP3) and Jiri Svoboda (Norma M20 FC) under control with the small, around 330 hp CN sports car. Likewise Peter Kormann and Marco Fink (PRC-BMW) as the first opponents from the SCC, who each finished fourth once.
Master without master honors?
However, Benjamin Hotz's four wins this season are not yet reflected in the championship. The two zeros due to his absence in Lausitz can hardly be made up for even with two more wins at the finale (probably at the Nürburgring) and after deducting a strike result.
Neither in his division, where Jasmin Fiedler on PRC-Honda is the only and in Hockenheim twice solo victorious opponent. Nor in the overall standings with Division 1, which the slowest - Austrian Wolfgang Terschl on a Tork Pro Sport 3000 - also leads thanks to six results.
But whoever beats everyone on the track should be allowed to feel like a champion either way.
