The Bernina Pass in the canton of Graubünden connects the Swiss Engadine in the north with the Italian Valtellina in the south. From La Rösa (1871 meters above sea level), a historic post and mule station in the middle of the southern pass road up to the top of the pass, the winding but very well-maintained road leads over 5.7 km up to 2330 meters.
Thomas Amweg, son of mountain king Fredy, mastered this stretch of road in his Martini-BMW F2 in just 2:58.62. He was clearly faster than Ronnie Kessel in Regazzoni's Ensign F1 last year.
But poor Thomas, who unfortunately had no competition, became the hero of the day at Bernina after Arosa. As the clear fastest, he had to cede the laurels to the second fastest Florian Fäustel in the Porsche Carrera RSR IROC replica from 1975.
Perhaps we should consider a special prize for the really fastest driver, so as not to end up losing the lone fighters and crowd favorites in their monoposti.
Thomas Kern with the unpainted Cobra 427 came second ahead of three more Porsche 911s.
The old guys can do it more evenly
Alexander Boller won the regularity classification in the mighty pre-war Bentley 4.5 liter with times of around 6 minutes.
The heavy car could not go any faster, moving within a few seconds in all four heats, in contrast to the other six, much lighter and faster pre-war cars. Among the 52 post-war regularity drivers, Tom Beck came closest to the standard time of 4:16.50 with the Alfa-Romeo 2600 Sprint Zagato.
Not all of the vehicles taking part in this hill climb looked coherent - after all, you'd expect to see hot racing cars rather than four-door mid-range saloons.
Set-up problems
Some drivers struggled with the gearbox set-up of their cars. On the steep mountain road, the second gear was too short, while the third was much too long. As a result, the revs in third dropped so low that they had to continue driving in second gear, albeit at very high revs.
Lots of celebrities, but few spectators
Of course, the sixth edition of the Bernina Granturismo hill climb on September 19 and 20, 2020, once again featured a number of celebrities at the start. Italian Marlboro man Arturo Merzario left his horse behind for once and drove the Abarth 2000 Sport 4 fari, but of course always with a cowboy hat as soon as the obligatory helmet with the current FIA seal of approval was removed.
Another Grand Prix participant was on site with the Swede Stefan Johansson. The former Ferrari and McLaren GP driver battled up the mountain track in the Saab V4 Montecarlo. For once, no deer crossed his path. For those who don't know the story: Stefan had an encounter with a deer in the McLaren during practice for the 1987 Austrian GP. He was very lucky not to be injured in the collision with the deer at around 220 km/h.
Due to Covid-19, there was hardly any advertising for the event, so the public was sparse in the beautiful Grisons mountains. They wouldn't have been allowed onto the cars anyway, as they needed a permit to do so.
Breathtaking mountain scenery
The mountain scenery on the Bernina Pass was once again breathtaking, although it was not always clearly visible this year. Thick fog often drifted past and an already fresh wind chilled the waiting riders (and engines). On the other hand, perhaps the Covid-19 bacteria were blown away better.
In any case, the participants didn't let the event get in the way of their fun and were delighted that there was finally another event where they could really step on the gas. After all, after all the canceled racing events, the cold season with snow and ice is soon approaching again. And no one knows what will happen next year ...
