Lotus V6 Cup: Wintsch remains lonely leader

A few drivers from the Lotus V6 Cup Suisse competed in four race fields at the Arlberg. Defending champion Dino Wintsch was in a class of his own in the dry and in the rain. In the context of the 5th Int. Arlberg Klein Slalom - a mountain race defused with a few gates - one race each on Friday and [...]

Editorial - July 15, 2020

For years, the Swiss Lotus drivers have been competing at the Arlberg and at the other mountain slaloms of the RRCV. Both in their own Cup and among the GT and Group H cars (Photo: Peter Wyss).

As part of the 5th Int. Arlberg Klein Slalom - a mountain race defused with a few gates - one race each on Friday and Saturday morning counted towards the Lotus V6 Cup Suisse 2020. In addition, some Lotus drivers took the opportunity on both afternoons to rewind the entire program in the first or second race field, depending on the configuration of their sports cars equipped with Toyota V6 engines, in various classes.

But no matter where and in what weather: The opponents in the Lotus racing class, who were stronger in numbers than ever before, were powerless against Dino Wintsch. Cup newcomer Hermann Bollhalder also dominated the action in the production cars.

The fastest with any tire
In picture-book weather on Friday morning, Wintsch decided the first race of the belatedly started season in his favor by adding up the three fastest of four running times with an advantage of more than four seconds. As in 2019, all the cars from the Lotus V6 Cup Suisse are running on uniform semislicks from Yokohama.

In the afternoon, he fitted slicks to his Lotus Exige 430 Cup and started with it in Group H over two liters. He beat his strongest opponent, the South Tyrolean Günther Ziernheld in a potent Lancia Delta Integrale, by more than two seconds and a likewise fast Vorarlberg driver in a Porsche Cayman GT4 by three seconds.

Whether wet or dry, slicks, semislicks or rain tires - Dino Wintsch was always the fastest of the Lotus drivers (Photo: Wisu Bucher).

Traction advantage for the all-wheel drive
The game was repeated the next day in the wet - almost. The architect from Hombrechtikon won the second Cup race of the weekend with a three-second reserve.

In the afternoon, Ziernheld was able to skillfully exploit his all-wheel-drive advantage and inflict a not entirely unexpected defeat on the Swiss. With racing tires, Wintsch also set the second-best time of all touring cars and GT vehicles on Friday in fourth place overall, and was seventh fastest in the wet on Saturday.

The multiple cup and club champion cannot really explain his superiority.

Dino Wintsch: "I simply enjoy driving, especially here in this beautiful area and on this selective track. Maybe it's also because I never mess around and am by no means nervous or dogged. But the fact that I looked so good at the Arlberg, even against pure racing cars, is already a mega result."

At the next round of the Lotus Cup, on July 26 at the Röthis slalom on the other side of the Swiss border, Wintsch will be absent because he is treating himself to a long-planned vacation in Tuscany. A favorite can then not be discerned on the basis of the results from the Arlberg - after all, behind him the positions were constantly changing.

Podium after the opening race in 2020 (from left): birthday boy Reto Sieber, Dino Wintsch, Benno Berchtold and Daniel Strim (photo: Peter Wyss).

Birthday podium
On his 52nd birthday, Reto Sieber was second best in the first championship race with his newly acquired Exige 410 Cup. For him at the first start in the Competition class "a tiptop result", which he could not confirm afterwards, however.

Last year's production car champion Benno Berchtold also made a good debut in the modified Lotus with an Exige 410 LW-R in third place in both Cup races. However, his challenge to Wintsch on Thursday evening did not go unheard - let's see if and, if so, when the man from Solothurn can fulfill it with a victory.

Daniel Strim, now also driving an Exige 430 Cup like Wintsch, showed a steady increase over the course of the weekend in terms of placings. On Saturday, in the rain, he followed up his 4th and 3rd place finishes with a second place in the Cup race and victory in the GTS class over two liters.

Cup leader Norbert Sieber proves that you can also be fast with the Evora against the Exige (Photo: Wisu Bucher).

Things are also moving fast with the Evora
Cup initiator and leader Norbert Sieber started with a strong second place in the new Evora GT 430 on Friday morning. Because he deliberately dabbled with different tire configurations to be able to advise his customers, the Cup result on Saturday was more modest in the wet. In the GTS+2000, the Widnauer celebrated a first and a second place.

Giuliano Piccinato only started in the Cup races in the morning. While the suspension he had adjusted on the Exige 410 LW-R didn't fit at all on Friday, he finished fourth in the rain on Saturday with better handling. But the multiple champion was not really satisfied with that either.

Hermann Bollhalder skillfully puts into practice in the Lotus Cup what he learned in the Berg-SM with the E1-Opel Speedster Turbo (Photo: Wisu Bucher).

Bollhalder already on course for mastery
Hermann Bollhalder made a great debut with an Exige Cup 350 in the Production class. The man from Toggenburg won both Cup races in commanding fashion, ahead of Roberto Zürcher in the dry and Daniel Steinmann in the wet.

The two newcomers Sascha Zeier and Marc Hofer made up the fourth and penultimate place in the shrunken class respectively.

Bolle" will hardly be able to be dissuaded from the path to the championship, which after Röthis will or should include two more mountain slaloms in Gargellen and Eichenberg as well as the Swiss slaloms on the Anneau du Rhin and in Wangen.

All rankings can be found in the attached result lists in our current report from the Arlberg race, those only from the Cup on the homepage of this private race series.