109 drivers from 10 European countries joined the trainings of the 9th FIA EHC Round – the FIA European Hill-Climb Championship. Saturday’s races were also the 7th Round of the Polish Hill-Climb Championship. 12 drivers started in single-seater cars from Category 2. Thousands of fans gathered along the Stara Wieś – Ostra Mountain Pass route. They were waiting for the next duel of two European champions: Simone Faggioli (ITA, Norma M20 FC Bardahi) and Christian Merli (ITA, Osella FA30) Zytek LRM) – the record holder of the 2018 route. That day clearly belonged to the driver from Trento – Merli was the fastest in all the trainings, overtaking his competitor by about 3.5 seconds in each race. Another Italian, Diego Degasperi (ITA, Osella FA30 Gea) was third.
In closed-body cars, Daniel Stawiarski had the best result three times (POL, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX). In one of the races, after his contact with energy-consuming barriers, DUBAI (POL, Mitsubishi Lancer) appeared at the top of the results list. In this season, DUBAI is the only Pole who fights for top places in FIA EHC. At the forefront of the category, there were Piotr Parys, Ronnie Bratshi (CHE, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX, who had a collision and his wheel broke off), Waldemar Kluza (POL, Skoda Fabia) and Piotr Parys ( POL, Ford Fiesta). Despite the hopes of Merlem fans, he did not manage to break his own record, although he approached it twice by less than a second.
Tomorrow, the drivers classified in the FIA EHC will start in free training, and at 11.30 with their GSMP colleagues, they will start the race of the 9th FIA EHC Round. During the two trainings and two racing climbs of the 7th Round of the Polish Hill-Climb Championship, a red flag appeared several times on the route, which meant that the race was stopped. In most cases, these were technical failures, only Adam Gładysz, who had a rollover, had a more serious collision, fortunately the driver was fine. Some of the competitors from the top of the general classification had to repeat their race; either they had to stand on the red flag, or they were slowed down by the cars in front of them, plagued by technical failures.
Daniel Stawiarski had the best times in training climbs, ahead of DUBAI and Michał Ratajczyk (Mitsubishi Lancer). However, both racing climbs belonged to Ratajczyk, who eventually won the 7th GSMP Round. In the first race, Ratajczyk was the second but he reported to the judges the fact that he had to drive after a damaged car of Gabriel Kubit. The poker play paid off: he repeated the race with a result better by almost two seconds and took the lead. In the second race he gave no chances to his rivals, ahead of Daniel Stawiarski by only 0.6 seconds!
In the final results of the round, DUBAI was ranked second (4,449 s loss) and Piotr Parys, who was over 11 seconds behind the winner. However, the young competitor of Eastern Automobilklub won in his class confidently, once again driving faster than his competitors with more experience in hill-climb races.
The fans’ attention was drawn to the competition of 5 Mini R53s (class 4b), normally competing on racetracks. In this group, three riders made their debut in hill-climb races, two (Felix and Radek Ćwięczek) had experience in GSMP, but for the first time they competed in Mini. Tomasz Pawlaczyk won this competition.
It is also worth noting the next appearance the so-called Crosscar in GSMP. Thanks to this year’s regulatory changes, these small, light vehicles powered by motorcycle engines could appear in hill-climb races. In Limanowa, only Teodor Kocur (Semog Bravo) appeared in this class, he was 47 out of 72 drivers classified. The next racing day in Limanwa will start at 9.00 a.m.
Detailed classifications can be found at www.wyniki-online.pl. The competition will be available on the website www.wysciggorski.pl, Facebook profiles of GSMP.PZM and Hill Climb Limanowa Official, reports from the race will also be available on Race Radio, on the frequency of 105.7 FM.
photo: Agnieszka Wołkowicz
[Press release]