Suzuki Racing Cup: "That's high league"

Normally the best in the Suzuki Swiss Racing Cup are only separated by fractions of a second, no matter the length of the track. That's how it was on a track layout that was new to everyone last Saturday in Bière - at least until after the first race run.

The challengers initially stayed on the ball
As already after the training Marcel Muzzarelli was ahead of Fabian Eggenberger who could reduce the gap from 45 to 37 hundredths. With a driving time of around 185 seconds, Sandro Fehr would also have been well in the mix with a gap of 1.15 without a gate fault.

And Patrick Flammer knew after the somewhat too restrained safety run that there was still more in it. After all, the man from Glarus had won in Ambri in October 2021, proving how fast the new mild hybrid sports car can be in the battle against pure gasoline engines.

The attack fails
But hours later, after the second run, it was all just statistics. Last year's runner-up Eggenberger improved his first time by only six hundredths. Fehr, who started right after him, stayed round two seconds above with a now faultless run.

Immediately afterwards, Flammer realized a net time only five hundredths slower than the leader Muzzarelli in the first race run, but had two gate errors and thus collected a time penalty of 20 seconds.

Demonstration of the master
As one of the last at the start, "Muzz" just learned Eggenberger's time and then drove completely carefree. The result was an improvement of 2.34 seconds, leaving Eggenberger behind by 2.71, Fehr by 4.43 and Flammer by 4.47 seconds.

The always cool-looking defending champion was astonished about this himself.

Marcel Muzzarelli: "It helped to know that Fabian couldn't beat me anymore. I was able to drive very differently and get much more out of the car, although it was close once or twice. Yes, it went well because the others didn't come close either. When the car is in the springs at the front, it has brutal grip."

Envy recognition
Because he had skied too safely in the first run, he wanted too much in the second run, and that resulted in less, Eggenberger explained. The man from Zurich was nevertheless satisfied with second place, as was Fehr with third.

The St. Gallen native could be glad that the track dried so quickly after a rain shower between the two runs, giving him a second chance.

Sandro Fehr: "It was a good match. But where Muzz gets the lead is a mystery. His performance is utopian."

Perplexed competitors
Other competitors expressed similar sentiments. It's just stupid that they can never watch how calmly and obviously more efficiently than them the master drives. Even Michael Béring, who like Rico Thomann and Flammer has a mini-season's experience in handling the new model, saw no country against him.

With a gap of more than five seconds, Béring's performance was sobering, as was the seven seconds of sixth-placed and rather clueless Jean-Claude Debrunner.

Cédric Moulin in Jean-Luc Janz's car was the best of the eight double starters in seventh place, taking turns at the wheel of four Suzukis. Rico Thomann (8th) and Alexander Ullrich (9th) were the best pair on one of the Flammer cars.

Roli Graf (12th) and Rolf Tremp (13th) from Toggenburg fell rather short of their expectations after they were used to top-10 finishes in a previously larger field with up to 30 cars. With gate failures in the first and second heat, Heiko Leiber (with Eggenberger's car) and Gautier Henchoz even experienced a day to forget.

Even masters must learn
The best newcomer was Giuliano Piccinato. The 58-year-old garage owner from Bättwil has three decades of racing experience, contested several one-make cups and was Swiss production car champion in 1993 on a Suzuki Swift GTI.

For reasons of time - work comes first - Piccinato returned to the "old" brand without any test drives. For 14 years, he had never driven such a soft production car, to which he first had to get used.

His conclusion after tenth place among 17 participants was therefore satisfactory despite the gap of 9.25 seconds.

Giuliano Piccinato: "From conversations and video recordings, I know that some of the others drive quite differently. An interesting comparison. But Muzzarelli's time is off the charts. This is already a high league. It's good that I can still improve..."

All the others will have to do the same if they want to beat Marcel Muzzarelli. The next opportunity would be in the two races on Saturday, May 14, as part of the ACS Autorenntage Frauenfeld. But "Muzz" is particularly motivated for his home race...

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