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FIA Hill Climb Masters: 14 national teams competing and live-streaming

There were 12 in 2014; there will be 14 next weekend: 14 federations have each put together a national team comprising four drivers and one captain for the FIA Hill Climb Masters which will take place on 8-9 October in Šternberk (CZE). The three hill climbs on Sunday will be live-streamed.

The most individual of motor sport disciplines has to be hill climb, a discipline that pits the driver alone against the clock; alone to face their destiny. By definition, because they are alone at the wheel and on the road, hill climb drivers will never be able to complain that another competitor got in the way, nor of being misdirected by a co-driver!

Like all other hill climb races, the Masters will reward the ability, precision, concentration and top speed of the best drivers, individually classified by Category.

However, the event will be coupled with a less common competition: the Nations Cup, which requires a strategic team effort among four drivers specifically chosen by their ASN (National Sporting Authority) and guided by a captain. It will of course involve fast driving, but especially accurate and consistent driving. Indeed, the national team classification will be based on how consistent the times are over two heats of the race. It will not be the fastest times in any one hill climb that will prevail, as is the case in the individual classification, rather it will be the time difference between each driver's best two hill climbs that will count. The winning team will be the one that has the least time difference when the times of the top 3 out of 4 drivers are added together. This is a way of putting countries on the same level playing field regardless of what cars they are able to enter. Therefore, a country that does not have any single-seaters or sports cars has every chance of doing well - it is up to its drivers to demonstrate how consistent their performance can be.

In other words, the three teams that will be participating in the Nations Cup for the first time - Greece, Bulgaria and Romania - which only have touring cars, will have the same odds of winning as Italy, who won in 2014 with a team made up exclusively of single-seaters and prototypes.

The national teams registered are:

- Austria (Captain: W. Sauer): F. Madrian, K. Schagerl, "Tessitore", C. Schweiger
- Belgium (Captain: P. Bodart): D. Boemer, B. De Saedeleer; Y. Bodson; J. De Sutter
- Bulgaria (Captain: L. Mechkov): L. Kamenov, H. Manolov, Y. Teliyski, S. Stoev
- Czech Republic (Captain: J. Koubek): M. Benes, D. Michl, J. Maly, T. Vavrinec
- France (Captain: S. Tessier): S. Petit, C. Frantz, N. Werver, P. Schmitter
- Germany (Captain: C. Schackmann): E. Pisano, M. Schutle, T. Ostermann, S. Montalto
- Greece (Captain: M. Xanthakos): P. Lioris, G. Kehagias, S. Vorgias, I. Plagos
- Italy (Captain: F. Dalmeri): S. Faggioli, C. Merli, P. Macario, L. Peruggini
- The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg (Captain: N. Hartz): R. Braquet, N. Schilling, C. Valentiny, C. Marchione
- Poland (Captain: M. Süss): R. Stec, D. Borycki, R. Serafinowicz, M. Wrona
- Romania (Captain: M. Stoean): P. Andronic, L. Radut, V. Botez, R. Szene
- Slovakia (Captain: D. Koblisek): J. Beres Jr, I. Drotar, T. Ondrej, P. Jurena
- Switzerland (Captain: P. Falk): F. Bouduban, R. Nüssli, R. Schnellmann, F. Neff
- United Kingdom (Captain: T. Wilson): D. Uren, D. Warwick, D. Warburton, C. Satchell

LIVE-STREAMING OF THE RACE

All three heats of the FIA Hill Climb Masters will be live-streamed on Sunday, 9 October 2016 via the following link: https://goo.gl/LxiRZA. There will be a total of eight cameras set up along the 3.3 km race course so that the progress of the 131 entered drivers can be followed, and to allow those who are unable to attend in person to watch the event live!

For more information on the FIA Hill Climb Masters, click here.
Facebook page: www.facebook.com/FIAHCM