Swiss Race Academy: Eight young finalists 🎥
LATEST YEAR Eight participants qualified for the 2019 Swiss Race Academy Junior Mountain Championship at the Event Center Seelisberg. Never before have there been so many young drivers. Although the number of candidates for the Swiss Race Academy 2019 decreased slightly compared to the first two years. The quality of the third [...]
The number of candidates for the Swiss Race Academy 2019 decreased slightly compared to the first two years. However, this does not detract from the quality of the third cohort, which will take part in the Swiss Mountain Championship Junior.
According to the invitation to tender, no participant may be older than 28. However, this age limit has never been exceeded. No less than three finalists are only 19 years old, and the oldest only celebrated his 26th birthday on January 6. In contrast to last year, no young women applied.
Rejection of three candidates
In order to avoid that race-experienced drivers qualify as in 2017 and 2018, the organizers of Swiss Driving Event Seelisberg, in consultation with Auto Sport Schweiz, had to reject three applicants who were interesting in themselves. They did not have any experience in hill climbs, as is a requirement, but with a national license on the circuit.
So now there are eight finalists among themselves, three of whom have more or less great experience from karting and others from trackdays and slaloms.
On ice and on the simulator
All of them had to master several tasks. The most difficult test was the individual time trial on the icy circuit at the Seelisberg Event Center. With a Nissan with rear-wheel drive, the best possible times had to be set - not a piece of cake with rear-wheel drive and normal winter tires without studs.
Talent at the wheel was also allowed to be shown on the racing simulator in the virtual DTM touring car without any driving aids. Interestingly, the fastest on the ice track was the slowest on the simulator and also the youngest without the least racing experience.
No eastern Swiss, no Bernese, no Romand and no Ticino
The jury was made up of the well-known racing drivers Ronnie Bratschi and Röbi Wicki as well as Hans Schori and Yves Meyer from the Eventcenter Seelisberg. AutoSprint sports editor Peter Wyss had to interview all of them, and here, too, some of them were a little nervous.
These are the eight participants in the Berg-SM Junior 2019: Gianluca Forcella (19) from St. Moritz GR, Marco Grilli (25) from Bettwil AG, Daniel Kauter (22) from Gross SZ, Michael Müller (19) from Näfels GL, Sandro Müller (21) from Arth SZ, Pascal Siegrist (26) from Strengelbach AG, Noah Suter (19) from Suhr AG and Rico Thomann (25) from Winterthur ZH.
Motivated and focused
Yves Meyer, co-owner of Eventcenter Seelisberg and head of the Swiss Race Academy since January 1, 2019, is delighted with the new vintage.
Yves Meyer: "Rider-wise as well as communicatively, we are surprised what a motivated and qualified group of participants took part in this sighting. The conditions on the ice were difficult, as they can be in changeable weather on the mountain. Now we are curious to see how they will develop. We are already looking forward to the new season."
As before, uniform Toyota GT86s will be used in accordance with SuperSeries regulations. The season kicks off on June 30 in Reitnau, where three finalists from Aargau will be playing their home games. Subsequent races will be held in Ayent-Anzère, Oberhallau and, for the first time, in Les Paccots (instead of Gurnigel).
The following short video shows a review of last year's final at Gurnigel:
