Lotus Cup: "Bolle" and Wintsch sovereign

DOUBLE WINS IN GARGELLEN Hermann Bollhalder and Dino Wintsch also remained undefeated at the third Lotus V6 Cup Suisse event in Gargellen. However, the mountain slalom had its pitfalls. Like the Arlbergrennen and the Slalom Röthis, the Int. Berg Klein Slalom of Gargellen counted with the two self-contained races on Saturday and Sunday [...]

Editorial - August 28, 2020

After this pylon hit, Dino Wintsch had to make two clean-fast runs to avoid being beaten (photo: Ramon Hänggi).

Like the Arlbergrennen and the Slalom Röthis, the Int. Berg Klein Slalom of Gargellen with its two self-contained races on Saturday and Sunday counted towards this year's Lotus V6 Cup Suisse. For Dino Wintsch, however, it started with a small driving mistake, he had touched a pylon on the 1.5 kilometer long and fast mountain race track in Vorarlberg after all.

Narrow victory for Dino Wintsch
However, Daniel Strim with an identical Exige Cup 430 would also have been net ahead of the reigning champion from the Competition class. So Wintsch had to pull out all the stops in the second and third runs and remain faultless in the process to oust Strim from the top spot.

As the serious accident of their Lotus colleague Giuliano Piccinato, which we will not go into here at the latter's special request, resulted in the cancellation of a fourth race run for time reasons, Wintsch's lead of 22 hundredths was as narrow as can be. However, Daniel Strim is undoubtedly the up-and-comer of the year.

Daniel Strim puts Wintsch under increasing pressure. In Gargellen not much was missing to beat the defending champion (Photos: Wisu Bucher).

Places 3 to 5 went to Reto Sieber (Exige 410 Cup R), Mario Hedinger (Exige Komotec) and Christian Nüssli (Exige Cup 430), separated only by fractions of a second.

Bollhalder in a class of his own
Hermann Bollhalder distanced himself more clearly from his three competitors in the Production class. While the man from Toggenburg was more than seven seconds ahead in the aggregate, Daniel Steinmann was only able to relegate Roberto Zürcher to third place by six tenths thanks to his good second running time.

Wintsch faster than all GT cars
In the afternoon race without Cup classification, Dino Wintsch played out his class and the potential of the Lotus to the full in the rain. The Zurich native, who started in Group H, set the fastest time of all touring cars and GT vehicles, including Christoph Zwahlen in the Porsche GT3 Cup, who had previously been fastest on the day in the dry, and the Lancia Delta all-wheel-drive cars of two South Tyroleans.

In the GTS group, Hermann Bollhalder with the production Exige also relegated all his competitors with modified cars to their places.

Here beckons the superior man in the production cars. Hermann Bollhalder is still unbeaten with the Exige Cup 350.

Exclamation mark by Mario Hedinger
On Sunday, Dino Wintsch took more than a second off his opponents in each of the four race heats with a driving time of under 48 seconds. Mario Hedinger really put himself in the limelight for the first time as second fastest. Already in Röthis, where Wintsch was absent (vacations), the man from Grisons was second behind Strim.

Also Christian Nüssli was happy about rank 3 and his first podium this year, while for Daniel Strim after rank 2 the day before the fourth place was rather a disappointment.

Production car champion Benno Berchtold, who was promoted to the Competition class in 2020, is also not yet satisfied with his results.

Mario Hedinger from Samedan is one of the surprises of the year with his Exige Komotec.

Tough battle in midfield
But the air in the midfield of the Competition cars has become extremely thin this year. The previous day's third-placed Reto Sieber was only two hundredths behind Berchtold in sixth.

With places 6 and 7, his brother Norbert Sieber was also beaten below value in the fastest Evora. The Cup initiator and brand manager at Lotus West in St. Gallen could not get the accident of his customer out of his mind.

Only Zwahlen was faster
In the series cars, winner Bollhalder distanced second-placed Steinmal in the Cup race by just 4.21 seconds and Zürcher in third place by 10.78 seconds. In the afternoon Group H and GTS race, "Bolle" repeated his success from the previous day in his class, this time in the dry.

Wintsch was also faster than ever on slicks, but was unable to prevent Christoph Zwahlen in the Porsche from taking the class win.

The fast track in Gargellen has been part of the annual program of the Lotus V6 Cup Suisse for years. In the picture Heinz Wiese in the Evora.

What next?
How many races will still be part of the Lotus V6 Cup Suisse in 2020 is unclear after the cancellation of the Anneau du Rhin slalom and the third mountain slalom in Eichenberg. There may be one or two replacement events before the planned finale at the Wangen SZ slalom on October 25.