Anzère: Victory without joy for Berguerand
HARD WEEKEND All-day rain and morning fog marred the action at the Ayent-Anzère hill climb. Although his dad Louis had a serious accident, Eric Berguerand drove to victory on the day with a performance that was strong on nerves. For the first time since the final round in Les Paccots in September 2017, a Swiss hillclimb race was held all day in the rain. Not because of the wetness, but because of the [...]
For the first time since the final round in Les Paccots in September 2017, a Swiss hillclimb race was held all day in the rain. Not because of the wetness, but because of the fog on Sunday morning, the conditions at the 44th Ayent-Anzère hill climb were critical at times and never the same for everyone. Because the wet also led to two serious accidents involving race car drivers, there were long delays, so that only two instead of three races were held.
Hurry up
The last E1 drivers spent more than three hours at the pre-start until it was their turn for the first time due to several interruptions caused by the fog. Of the racing cars that followed, only a few made it to the finish before a serious accident involving Thomas Zürcher caused a good hour and a half of waiting. Fortunately, the Bernese remained practically unhurt, but the Tatuus F4, which was equipped for the first time with the 1170 Abarth racing turbo engine developed at LRM in Italy, took enormous damage.
Sports car driver Marcel Steiner, who had started and finished earlier, remained at the top of the overall standings after the restart of the strongest race cars, 16 hundredths ahead of Eric Berguerand in the Lola-Cosworth and 2.5 ahead of Joël Volluz in the Osella FA30. With a time just above his own last year's record, the championship leader and local hero was still clearly ahead in practice.
Eric Berguerand: "With an hour and a half to wait for the start, you lose concentration. I therefore slept through the first race run, although the time itself wasn't bad."
Shock shortly before the end of the race
His nerves were put to the test even more afterwards. A few cars ahead of him in the E2-2000 class, his father Louis Berguerand crashed his Formula Renault in exactly the same place as Tom Zürcher. The 81-year-old senior driver suffered an open fracture of the arm, which prompted the race organizers to transport him to the hospital by helicopter. We would like to take this opportunity to send Louis Berguerand our best wishes for a speedy recovery!
Thus, after another long interruption, the last race cars did not start until around 6 p.m. for the second run, including Eric Bergurand. As the track had almost dried out in the first bends after the start, better times were possible than before, although it was still raining slightly at the top in Anzère.
Berguerand on course for title
Volluz and Berguerand drove significantly faster than Steiner. With a time of 1'38.329, Berguerand set the clear fastest time despite worries about his father and thus secured his sixth win of the day at his home race with a lead of around five seconds.
Marcel Steiner saved second place overall by a tenth from Volluz. Now 26 points ahead, Berguerand has already made up for his scheduled scratch result in the championship from the next race, St-Ursanne-Les Rangiers (where he has never raced since the accident in 2007). At best, the defending champion will pick up 25 points there for the Swiss classification win (a record is unrealistic), and for his part he still has to cross off a result.
Surprise at the two liters
Still three tenths behind Robin Faustini in the original Reynard F-Nippon in the first heat, Thomas Amweg turned the tables by one second in the Lola-Mader F3000 in the second heat to take third place in the race cars.
There was a surprising winner in the two-liter race cars. Philip Egli, who was fastest in practice, charged up his Dallara after the first race run because the incidents had made him lose interest and the risk had become too great. Arriving first at Zürcher's accident site, Christian Balmer in the Tatuus-Honda FM was also unsettled during the run repetition and therefore clearly slower than Henri Schmidt in the Caparo F-Renault before this incident. So Schmidt's lead was enough to win the class.
Schnellmann wins after Bratschi's retirement
The fastest touring car also came away empty-handed. While Ronnie Bratschi was still relatively close to Roger Schnellmann after two dry practice runs, he distanced him by 2.2 seconds in the first rain run. A few meters after the start of the second run, the man from Uri rolled out with drive damage.
Without Bratschi's target now in slightly better conditions, Schnellmann took his third E1 season victory. Meanwhile, Thomas Kessler put his Mitsubishi Evo VIII on the guardrail protected by straw bales shortly before the finish.
The second-fastest touring car driver in the additon was thus last year's champion Frédéric Neff in the Porsche 996 GT3 R, who was competing in Switzerland for the first time in 2019 and with whom he dominated the Interswiss group. With a superior group win in the SuperSeries, Andy Feigenwinter in the Lotus Exige continues to hold the top spot in the standings ahead of Schnellmann.
In the Berg-SM Junior, Rico Thomann won as he did at the season opener in Reitnau, as did mountain specialist Philipp Krebs in the Renault Classic Cup. We will come back to both championships as well as to the half-time status in the Berg Cup of the smaller touring cars in separate reports.
gvi-timing.ch/documents/pdf/2019/anzere/NAT.pdf
gvi-timing.ch/documents/pdf/2019/anzere/Scratch%20NAT.pdf
