By Forcing his way through the pain barrier, nursing a shoulder injury, picked up during the Opul Superstock race of TT 2025, Maurizio Bottalico sealed outright honours at a sun doused Bergrennen Julbach Hill Climb in Austria.
Post Saturday’s practice-sessions, Sunday’s race action saw Yamaha vaulted rider Bottalico, the new third fastest Italian rider in TT Races history, lead home both Superbike race bursts, gaining a best time of 1 minute 04.754 seconds, set within his opening time-trial run.
His overall event winning combined time of 2 minutes 09.939 seconds, (adding together time-trial runs one and two), left him over 1.7 seconds in front of SBK P2 finisher x2 Christian Steinhauser.
Jean Luc David (2.11.921), Thomas Altenhuber (2.12.442), Markus Mitterbauer (2.13.111), Salvatore Sallustro (2.14.519) finished third, fourth, fifth, sixth respectively whilst leading non 1000cc equipment pilot in seventh was Naked Bikes class leader, Rudolf Bauer (2.14.744).
Completing the first ten finishers were Supersport/Moto 2 tour-de-force Alexander Kastenhuber (2.14.900), Superstock 1000 ‘King Pin’ Harald Schleindlhuber (2.15.332) and Mario Grunwald (2.16.428).
Category winners not including Sidecar classes, not centred on yet are highlighted below:
(Overall races time, positioned near competitors names)
2-Stroke Classics, up to 1979: Rene Kropfmuller – 2.52.763
4-Stroke Classics, up to 1979: Stefan Dobler – 2.45.220
Yesteryear GP Bikes: Sepp Bader – 2.44.990
Yesteryear Superbikes Class A, up to 1990: Wolfgang Deutschmann – 2.56.169
Yesteryear Superbikes Class B, up to 1990: Hermann Altenhuber – 2.34.013
Yesteryear Open, up to 1990: Gunter Bammer – 2.32.668
Yesteryear Sidecars, up to 1978: Roland Gundinger/TBC – 3.38.221
Young timer Open, up to 750cc: Klaus Selmeister – 2.23.749
Young timer Open, up to 1300cc: Christian Mair – 2.23.291
125/Moto 3: Lorenzo Tiveron – 2.41.807
250 Grand Prix: Guido Testoni – 2.27.734
500cc: Franky Zorn – 2.29.494
Supersport 300: Cosimo Sozzo – 3.00.514
Superstock 600: Alexander Kastenhuber – 2.16.659
Special Bikes: Daniel Crown – 2.21.301
Supermoto Open: Philipp Neumuller – 2.24.300
Supermoto Challenge: Rudolf Bauer – 2.23.744
Photo credit: Jan Vavra
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
