In 2009 Maltese driver Joshua Anastasi won his class in the Campionato Siciliano di Velocita in Pista.

In 2010 it was Alan Curmi who won his class in the same prestigious championship. This year Motorsport Team Malta has gone one further with both Anastasi and Curmi being crowned class champions for the second time. It doesn’t get much better than that.

But it wasn’t all rosy for the Malta Team last Sunday at Racalmuto.

The Autodromo Valle dei Templi at Racalmuto was chock a block with activity on this last round of the championship. A record number of over 130 cars filled the paddock for the weekend’s race meeting which was held in beautiful, sunny conditions, and the paddock looked like a who’s who of Italian motorsport with teams from Genova, Turin, Naples, Calabria, Sicily and Malta all competing for race honours. And in the presence of such company Malta and its three drivers showed, not just their speed and race craft, but also their true sportsmanship.

With less than half of the 20 minute qualifying session for the large capacity Formula race completed, Joshua Anastasi’s racing car developed an engine fire.

The 2008 ICC Hill Climb champion, noticing the problem, limped his car as far as the first marshalling post and stopped there for assistance by the team of marshalls placed at strategic points along the circuit.

In a show of true sportsmanship, Alan Curmi who was following and racing for a good grid position, also stopped immediately, jumped out of his car, collected a fire extinguisher from the marshall’s post and helped extinguish the burning JBR-4 Kawasaki, as Joshua clambered out.

In so doing Alan had jeopardised his own chances of a good qualifying time. He nevertheless placed his Radical Suzuki third on the grid of 18 cars.

In the very competitive 1000cc Formula class Johann Spiteri was the only Maltese representative present on this occasion. Nevertheless he too excelled against some of Sicily and Italy’s strongest opposition to put his Jedi Suzuki on the front row of the grid on Saturday qualifying with a very respectable time.

With Joshua’s car out of the race, in true team spirit he turned to helping Johann and Alan on race day. The 1000cc race was the first for the Malta team and Johann Spiteri drove impeccably to finish an excellent second in both the day’s races, demolishing his previous best lap time in the process.

Alan Curmi performed in a similarly satisfactory manner, placing third in the six-lap race, and an excellent second in the 10-lap final race two after pushing winner Marco Pollara throughout the race.

It has been another great championship for the “Motorsport Team Malta” team with the boys from Malta showing exemplary behaviour both on and off the track throughout the season.

The team thanked its main sponsor Virtu Ferries, without whose constant assistance all this would never have been possible.