Hill climb: Swiss Day in Eschdorf 🎥

With the French hillclimb champion Sébastien Petit in a Norma-Mugen V8, the fastest Luxembourger Guy Demuth in a Norma-Judd and the Swiss Marcel Steiner (LobArt-Mugen) and Joël Volluz (Osella-Judd FA30), four hillclimb specialists from three nations formed the narrow circle of favorites at the International Hillclimb Race in Eschdorf. Since Petit already had three big hill climbs behind him, not a few were betting on the Frenchman as the day's winner.

The Swiss beats the French mountain champion
But the Swiss champion was better able to adapt to the cold, albeit dry conditions on race day. After topping the list after the only practice run, Marcel Steiner was also the fastest in all three race runs, of which the best time was scored.

With a time of 49.833 seconds, the garage owner from Oberdiessbach was the only driver with a time under 50 seconds. He had previously only managed this in May 2013 on the drive to the first Luxembourg stage win with the Osella FA30.

With a 0.388-second gap in what was also the fastest third run, Sébastien Petit had to settle for second place, with Guy Demuth following a further 1.171 seconds behind as the third-fastest sports car driver.

Volluz wins in the race cars
Joël Volluz lost almost two seconds to his compatriot in his fastest run. At least the Valais native finished fourth to win the E2 single seater group. As overall eighth, Robin Faustini finished fourth in the race cars in his first race of the season.

Even for Steiner, the relatively clear day's victory is somewhat surprising.

Marcel Steiner: "Based on Petit's practice in the first races of 2019 and last year's season, when he was clearly ahead of me in Osnabrück and Gubbio, this was not necessarily to be expected. With us, in contrast to him, everything obviously went well."

Countable progress
Steiner Motorsport installed a new KW suspension on the LobArt-Mugen for 2019, which worked perfectly in conjunction with the Pirelli Ultra Soft tires. The driver from Bern had already noticed this during the test drives of Sägesser Motorsport at the Circuit of Bresse, where he realized an unofficial lap record with it.

Marcel Steiner: "From the circuit to the mountain, this progress was difficult to judge, but it proved true. Driving was also huge fun again. Now I'm looking forward to the Swiss hill climbs."

Zemp with switching problems
Michel Zemp had less fun at the premiere in the Norma Honda. In the two-liter sports car, the paddle shifters caused so many problems that the man from Langnau only completed one run in moderate time and then abandoned the exercise.

Thomas Zürcher, who like Zemp benefited from the infrastructure and experience of Steiner Motorsport, competed for the first time in a hillclimb race with the Tatuus-Abarth. Still with the original 1400cc turbocharged Abarth engine in the rear, the Bernese realized a good time in 58.277 amidst several Formula 3 and Master race cars. Soon the LRM 1170 turbocharged engine, which produces around 300 hp, will be installed for the start in the class up to two liters.

Bratschi already in good shape
The fastest Swiss also showed their strength in the touring cars. With 57.465 seconds, Ronnie Bratschi in the Mitsubishi Evo VIII Egmo won the duel with Nicolas Werver in the Porsche 997 GT2 on this power track by almost three tenths of a second.

Ronnie Bratschi: "The second run would have been faster if shifting problems hadn't occurred. After that we changed the gearbox software. In Eschdorf I already drove a 56 time, but this time the grip was missing because of the practice left open from Saturday. Abreschviller and Eschdorf were good preparation races for the Swiss Mountain Championship. Now there is still a lot of fine tuning to do."

Nüssli accident
Third fastest touring car/GT driver was Frédéric Neff, who also broke the minute barrier with the Porsche GT3 R. Thomas Kessler came fourth in the E1/H over three liters with his Mitsubishi Evo VIII.

Romeo Nüssli was unlucky. In the first practice run on Saturday evening, the man from Aargau slid into and onto the crash barriers of the finishing bend. The damage to the Ford Escort Cosworth could not be repaired on site.

A summary of the action in Eschdorf can be seen in the following video from LP Rallye13:

For Romeo Nüssli the Luxembourg race weekend ended on the guard rail.

The detailed report including all participants is available at http://www.berg-meisterschaft.de the leading German hillclimbing homepage of our colleague and photographer Thomas Bubel.

The complete ranking list (under events) is available at

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