St-Ursanne: Incredible speed records 🎥

FASTER THAN EVER St-Ursanne - Les Rangiers 2019 was the absolute record mountain race. No driver elsewhere in Europe has ever been as fast as Simone Faggioli. Marcel Steiner, whose ride we show exclusively in the onboard video, achieved Swiss record. Using the example of the Les Grippons passage, a left-hand bend under the highway approached at over 250 km/h, [...]

Editorial - August 21, 2019

The example of the Les Grippons passage, a left-hand bend under the highway approached at over 250 km/h, illustrates the enormous speed. This first race run by Simone Faggioli on Sunday morning goes down in the history of the European Mountain Championship. 1'39,306 for 5180 meters gives an average of 187,78 km/h.

Except for the 17.3-kilometer Trento-Bondone hill climb, however, it is always the addition of two running times that counts. Since the x-time European and national champion brought the second shot to the finish line in another impressive 1'39.799, the average speed is an incredible 187.32 km/h.

Under 100 and 200 seconds
There are hill climbs with higher top speeds in certain sections, but none in Europe with such a horrendous average - and this, nota bene, with a good 500 meters of village crossing after the start and three hairpins in the final sector. Incidentally, Faggioli needed less than 100 seconds for one run and less than 200 seconds for two. With 3'19.105 he was more than four seconds faster than in the previous record day victory in 2017!

Simone Faggioli in the Norma M20 FC. The first few hundred meters are along the Doubs in St-Ursanne, then around a gas station and over a hump before the actual mountain section begins.

European or even world record?
According to our research, no other round of the European Mountain Championship or the FIA Mountain Cup has ever had such high cuts. Only in Dobsinsky Kopec, the eighth round of the European Championship held on July 21 in Slovakia, was Faggioli's record run of 182.30 km/h nearly as fast.

At the Esthofen-St. Agatha hill climb in Austria, Christian Merli won with an average of 185.37 km/h on September 24, 2017. The South Tyrolean covered the second race run with his Osella FA30 at that time with an average of 185.42 km/h - that was the previous speed record in Europe.

For a good ten years, Simone Faggioli has been the mountain king in Europe, only really challenged by compatriot Christian Merli (Photos: Peter Wyss).

Before Faggioli dethroned him last Sunday, Merli was the record holder at the Swiss European Championship race with 1'41.530 since August 2017 and with 183.67 km/h average slightly less fast than a month later in St. Agatha. The Austrian track measures 3200 meters and has no tight turns. In the other European countries with a mountain culture, only France (180.89 km/h in La Pommeraye) has a similar speed.

Steiner achieves a Swiss record
So while Faggioli, now a nine-time winner on the day, presumably set a world record in the Jura, no Swiss has ever been that fast anywhere with Marcel Steiner. The Bernese undercut his previous best time of 1'44.561 with the same car (LobArt-Mugen LA01) by a good three seconds. On the 11-meter shorter track, Joël Volluz was the fastest Swiss to date in 2013 on an Osella FA30 in 1'45.26 and 176.78 km/h average.

In Esthofen in 2017, Steiner achieved his highest ever average speed of 177.105 km/h, which he pushed up to 178.345 km/h with his Swiss record drive at this year's home race. What it looked like from the driver's perspective is shown in the onboard video he provided:

No more dangerous than elsewhere
As the video shows, Steiner does not take "Les Grippons" at full throttle in 6th gear, unlike the two Italian pros. He knows that this would be possible, but prefers a "calming lug". Also, as reported in Sunday's race report, you can see that he didn't do particularly well in either run at the start.

Despite the horrendous speeds, the five-time champion doesn't find the Swiss record race at all more dangerous than other hill climbs.

Marcel Steiner: "If the car feels good, you can drive like that. If you have to fight with the handling, you take more risk and are often slower. To implement that, you also need a track as good as the one we have now since the resurfacing at Les Rangiers."

Now the accident of 2013 is a thing of the past
The fact that he succeeded in doing so with a targeted 1'44 time is also associated with enormous relief for Steiner. Because exactly six years ago to the day he survived his most serious accident to date (rollover with the Osella in the fast middle section) unscathed. In the head, however, he remained to date.

Marcel Steiner: "The whole week before the race I thought about it. Because the LobArt never really ran well there in 2017 and 2018. So I wondered what would come out of it now. When the car was already running so well in the first practice, the mood changed. So I was more satisfied with third overall behind Simone and Christian than in previous years."