The Island Car Club 2012 Hillclimb Championship roared off last weekend with the season-opening race at Gnejna.

An entry of 47 cars was registered with drivers eagerly lining up for competition in the morning first practice.

Amongst the local drivers The Island car Club welcomed Italian driver Ignazio Cannavo’ who came over to Malta this past weekend with his Peugeot 205 1400cc to compete in the ICC event.

Cannavo’ is currently participating in the Italian Gran Turismo Championship with his Ferrari F430GT Cup and is one of the favourites for the prestigious title. Cannavo’ has a very successful past winning the “Formula challenge” and also winning numerous Hill climb challenges like Acireale, Vecchia Avola Antica and the famous Catania Etna many of which he earned his victories in his Group-A Peugeot 205 Rally 1400cc.  

The ICC club is very proud to welcome Cannavo’ and he should be participating in more hill climbs to come, significantly at Mtahleb.

Cannavo’ commented “I enjoyed participating in your hill climb, felt very welcome and although it was short I enjoyed the road tremendously, notwithstanding poor grip levels. I surely would love to participate in more Maltese hill climbs”.

The feedback coming from drivers after the first run was that the sand deposited by heavy rain in previous days was causing extremely low levels of traction and the organising body struggled to divert the water that leeched from the fields onto the central section of the 2 km road.  

Indeed, some drivers struggled to get more power down and resorted to short shifting to prevent wheel-spin and brake lock-up.

The second run consisting of a timed practice run saw most drivers running lower tyre pressures in an attempt to scrub more heat into the rubber.

As the day progressed, the asphalt got cleaner and temperature rose, improving grip levels which resulted in times dropping significantly.

On the last run, the road condition had improved so much that drivers could push their cars to the limit in search of a lead in their respective categories.

The leadership showed that Luigi Mifsud was in front in Group 1 with his Honda. David Galea was ahead in Group 2 with his Subaru and Nikolai De Giorgio was the fastest in Group 3 with his Lancia, both achieving noticeable times that even outpaced some single-seaters.

As the racers blazed the hill, all eyes shifted on the Group 6 drivers battling for the overall positions. Here, Zach Zammit (35.634) on his Ralt Honda clinched victory outpacing defending champion Hubert Camilleri (36.318) in his Chevron.

The Chevron Cosworth driver had difficulty to better his time after suffering a faulty steering rack due to a slight over steer in the double chicane.

Third place went to Matthew Zammit (36.825) in his Van Diemen F1000. Ivan Deidun (37.968) was fourth in his IDR 1300 which was an exacting result for the rookie driver who is continuously improving his performance and soon to be threatening the top runners.

The next event from the hill climb and sprint series is scheduled for April 1. The venue is Mtahleb, limits of Rabat.