A sizeable crowd turned up for the season’s second round from the Island Car Club Grimaldi Lines Hillclimb and Sprint Championship, at Mtaħleb, earlier this month.

Best time of the day was set by 2014 champion Keith Camilleri in his Chevron Creative Solutions Radical Prosport.

Camilleri and Mark Micallef have had some close battles in the past and at Mtaħleb they got engaged in another titanic duel.

At the end of the day, the gap between the two read six tenths of a second in favour of Camilleri.

Like most other contenders, Micallef (Avon & Fiamm Radical Prosport) struggled to get near the previous season’s best times in bumpy and dusty conditions. Most said grip was in short supply in braking and accelerating zones.

Matthew Zammit (Radical Prosport), Kurt Camilleri (Ralt RT36) and James Dunford (Radical PR6) completed the top five in the overall standings.

Despite the generally low grip levels, Noel Galea carved large chunks off his own mark in his Ford Escort Mk2, setting his new time at 57.857secs and winning the rear-wheel category.

In front-wheelers, Luigi Mifsud took top honours for the first time in his Honda Civic (62.032secs) as the four-wheel drive class was dominated by Anthony Bernard (61.827secs) in his Mitsubishi.

Mark Borg led the Classic Car group in an Alfa Romeo GTA whilst Teddy Aquilina won best performance in the category for veterans, achieving an impressive 60.753secs inside his SR1 single-seater.