Motorsport: Surprising Swiss winner

After a fine day of practice, the weather changed on Sunday morning, completely altering and exacerbating the conditions on the fast, 2.2-kilometer race track. Only the touring car drivers who started first found a dry track, after which rain and dry phases alternated, meaning that conditions were never the same for everyone. In the first race, only Marcel Steiner in the LobArt sports car and Eric Berguerand in the Lola-Ford were able to beat the best time set by Romeo Nüssli in the four-wheel-drive Ford Escort Cosworth.

In the second round, Marcel Steiner took the lead ahead of Romeo Nüssli with the only time under a minute. The other foreigners and all the Germans had no chance against the amazing man from Aargau in this final round of the Berg-DM and the FIA International Hill Climb Cup. In the third race, Romeo Nüssli again found slightly better conditions than the drivers with racing cars. While trying to maintain the lead, Marcel Steiner promptly slid into the crash barriers and retired with his badly damaged car.

Swiss double victory in unexpected order
Although Eric Berguerand beat Romeo Nüssli's third time, this year's overall fourth-placed driver in the Mountain Championship for Touring Cars was half a second ahead when the three runs were added together. The result was a Swiss double victory in an unexpected order. As the early winner of the FIA Hillclimb Cup for E1 touring cars, Ronnie Bratschi was unable to take part in the final race due to engine damage on his Mitsubishi.

Reto Meisel in a Mercedes SLK 340 was also on his way to a top place in the overall standings before he rolled out after the start of the second race without propulsion. Another outstanding performance from a Swiss perspective was put in by Michael Widmer, who finished eleventh overall out of 160 competitors from six nations in a near-series Group N Mitsubishi.

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Photos: Ramon Hänggi