FIA Historic Prize-Giving in Turin
In front of a crowd of around 200 people, the FIA Historic Prize-Giving took place on 14 February 2015 in the very beautiful and very instructional National Automobile Museum in Turin, which proved to be a highly appropriate place to honour the prize-winners – who included four women – of the FIA Historic Championships for the 2014 season. Moreover, in 2015, Turin is the European Capital of Sport and this gala is one of the many events that are being held and will be held, throughout the year.
In hill climbs, as in rallies, given the disparity of ages and levels of car, all the Championship classifications are established exclusively by category, and there is no absolute general classification.
The 2014 hill climb prize-winners, divided into five categories, were the Czechs Vladimir Konicar (category 1, BMW), Petr Tykal (category 5, Formula Easter MTX 1-03) and Josef Michl (category 2, Porsche 911), the Pole Marian Czapka (category 3, Porsche 928) and the Italian Uberto Bonucci (category 4, Osella PA9/90). Each of them had successfully defended their own titles, except for Czapka, who was celebrating his first title at international level.
The historic rallies are run either in sporting mode or in regularity mode. The FIA Trophy for Historic Regularity Rallies was won by an Italo-Monégasque pairing, Paolo Marcattilj winning ahead of the other drivers and Marco Maria Calegari winning ahead of the other co-drivers. In the sporting rallies, the names of some of whose competitions conjure up such prestigious and historic images (San Remo and Acropolis to name but two), the Champions called up onto the stage were the Italian Luigi Zampaglione (category 1, Porsche 911) and Lucio Da Zanche (category 2, Porsche 911), the Austrian Karl Wagner (category 3, Porsche 911) and the Italian “Lucky” (category 4, Lancia Rally 037). The team-mates were honoured separately, which provided the perfect opportunity to put the women participants firmly under the spotlight, specifically by virtue of the prizes awarded to the Finns Solja Mentu (second in category 3) and Reeta Hämälainen (third in category 1), to the Austrian Gerda Zauner (first in category 3) and to the Italian Fabritzia Pons (first in category 4). The Historic Rally Club Finland lifted the Team Trophy.
As had been the case twelve months earlier, the FIA Masters Historic Sports Car Championship was dominated by the Leo Voyazides-Simon Hadfield duo, at the controls of a Lola T70 Mk3B. As for the Championship for Formula One, it saw the final victory of the Italian Manfredo Rossi di Montelera, at the wheel of an iconic Brabham Martini-Rossi in the category for the cars with no ground effect. The other category, reserved for ground effect and flat-bottomed Formula 1 cars, was won by the Briton Steve Hartley (Arrows), in whose absence the trophy was awarded to the co-organiser of the Championship, Ron Maydon. In defiance of their 50 years, the little Formula Juniors of 1000 to 1100 cc of the Lurani Trophy seem to be truly indefatigable and, moreover, present in impressive numbers in each of the competitions of the Championship, frequently serving up some very spectacular and competitive races. The drivers honoured for the 2014 season were the Briton Jonathon Hughes (winner in the general classification and in Class E1), the Belgian Jan Biekens (Class A), the Dane Pierre Guichard (Class C2) and Erik Justesen (Class B2) and the Britons Malcolm Wishart (Class E2), Greg Thornton (Class D1) and Steve Futter (Class D2).