For the tenth time, the Hill Climb in Limanowa will be a round of the FIA EHC- FIA European Hill Climb Championship. The Auto Moto Club Limanowa has been organising car hill climb races at the Polish Championship level since 2009. As early as 2011, the event gained international recognition when a round of the FIA CEZ (FIA Central European Zone Championship) and the Slovak Championship was held on the 6031-metre-long course. In 2014, for the first time, competitors participating in the FIA EHC came to Limanowa.
For safety reasons (high speeds at the previous finish area), the course was shortened to 5493 metres; the first winner of the Polish championship round was Miloš Beneš (CZE, Osella FA 30), setting a track record with a time of 2:03.101. The Czech driver repeated his success the following year. In 2016, Italian champions appeared in Limanowa for the first time: the king of hill climbs, Simone Faggioli (Norma M20 FC), and the rising star of this motorsport discipline, Christian Merli (Osella FA 30), who won the race and set a new track record of 1:55.413. The driver from Trento won in Poland five more times, setting successive records: in 2018, he completed the course in 1:53.398. Merli’s series of victories was interrupted only in 2019 by Faggioli, who recorded a time 0.6 seconds better than his competitor.
The first Polish driver to stand on the overall podium of the FIA EHC in Limanowa was Robert Steć, who finished third in 2014. Steć’s success was repeated in 2022 by Karol Krupa, who also won Category 1 (closed-body cars).
In 2018, Robert Sługocki took second place in Cat. 1, with Łukasz Niemiec in third place; the following year, Konrad Biela took second place in this category. The years 2021, 2022, and 2023 saw the total dominance of Poles driving closed-body cars. Besides the aforementioned Krupa, Daniel Stawiarski, DUBAI, Piotr Parys, Waldemar Kluza, and Sebastian Stec also stood on the podium.
This year’s race will take place from July 26 to 28 and will be the 7th round of the FIA EHC and the 9th and 10th rounds of the Polish Hill Climb Championship.
The event will begin on Friday with administrative and scrutineering. For drivers competing in the GSMP, scrutineering will take place in Limanowa in the parking lot in front of the Limanowa Cultural House (Br. Czecha Street 4); the cars of FIA EHC competitors will be checked in Stara Wieś, in the Service Park area.
Saturday’s 2 practice runs and 2 race runs of the 9th Round of GSMP for drivers classified in the FIA EHC will be for practice only. The main races will begin on Sunday, July 28: first, the morning practice run, and at 11:30 a.m., the first race run of the 10th Round of GSMP and the 7th Round of FIA EHC. Immediately after the first race run, the next one will begin, and the event will conclude around 4:00 p.m. with a ceremonial award ceremony.
The race is under the honorary patronage of:
Ireneusz Raś, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Sport and Tourism,
Łukasz Smółka, Marshal of the Małopołska Region.
The strategic partner of the race is the Małopolska Region.
The main partner in the race is Lotto.
The sponsors of the race include brands such as ORLEN OIL and TYMBARK.
[Press Release]