As the two westernmost rounds of the FIA European Hillclimb Championship were taking place in Al Fito, Spain and Falperra, Portugal, Simone Faggioli (Norma M20 FC Evo-Zytek) dominated again. He even set the track record for the Falperra course, beating his own previous best.

The E2-SS class, which regroups the most powerful single-seaters is vivified by the growing involvement of Frenchman Sébastien Petit. He and Fausto Bormolini are offering fantastic duels at each encounter. Over the two last rounds, the gap between them never exceeded 1 second and 13 thousandths.

The tight competition even resulted in a perfect draw at the evening of Al Fito. In this case, it was back to the rulebook for the two drivers: the final call was made in favor of Bormolini, who signed the fastest climb overall compared to his rival

A week later in Portugal, Bormolini prevailed again, less than half a second in front of Petit. But the fight on the track transcended the performance of the drivers, as both of them were faster at the wheel of their F3000 than more modern prototypes.

Milos Benes, from Czech Republic put in honorable resistance however, driving his Osella FA30 within a second of the first place.

Luxembourger David Hauser was never a threat, competing with his Wolf GB08F1, as he finished fourth in class and fifth overall in Spain, before retiring in Portugal when electronics of his car let him down.

Finally, on the closed-cockpit cars front, Spaniard Jose Lopez-Fombona and his Audi Quattro DTM triumphed in “Silhouette”, classifying within the pack of prototypes and single-seaters. In Group N, returning champion Igor Stefanovski dominated both rounds and was imitated in Group A by Czechman Lukas Vojacek.

The next round of the Championship will be contested in Sternberk in the Czech Republic on 6 and 7 June. Faggioli will head there again as hands-down favourite, but in the E2-SS category, Milos Benes will attempt to put his perfect knowledge of the course of Ecce Homo to good use to regain the upper hand over the Formula 3000s.