Last Sunday dawned clear, sunny and warm; ideal weather for hill climbing, and the 54 drivers that took part in the hill climb at Gnejna revelled in the excellent conditions, to provide the thousands of spectators that lined the hill with some spectacular driving.

And after four exciting runs it was 25-year-old Joshua Anastasi, driving his John Bull Racing/Dunlop JBR3 Kawasaki that smashed the existing hill record to win this third round of the championship in fine style.

After the second of the four runs it was already clear that this was going to be a record breaking day with four drivers below the record – and we were still on the practice runs!

At the end of the four runs of the excellently run event, Joshua won from veteran Lino Brincat’s Bardahl Dallara Alfa Romeo by a miniscule thirteen hundredths of a second, with third placed Paul Deguara driving his Motoflash Yamaha R1 less than a 1/10 further adrift.

Joshua’s record time of 34.871 was set on his third run, and was 1.3 seconds below the previous hill record established by Brincat last November.

Mistra winner Zach Zammit was fourth overall with his Jagger Ralt Honda 2000 with current champion Hubert Camilleri fifth with his Chevron Cosworth 2000 and Matthew Zammit rounded off the top half dozen with his Service Express Van Diemen Suzuki GSXR.

Mark Galea’s indecently quick Subaru Impreza WRX was ninth overall and fastest “tin top”, narrowly beating Nikolai Degiorgio’s Good Earth Lancia Delta Integrale. Joseph Cutajar won Group 5 with his Escort 2000, Daniel Vella won Group 2 with his Toyota GT Turbo, and Joe Vella won Group 1 with his Honda CRX.

With three rounds and three different winners (Lino at Mizieb, Zach at Mistra and now Joshua at Gnejna) the championship sees Joshua at the top of the table on 22 points from Lino (19), Zach (18), Hubert (17), and Paul (16).

The next round of the championship will be held at Xaghra Gozo on Sunday 11 May.