Rally Ticino: A race with three winners
RALLY Italy's Andrea Crugnola was the fastest driver at the Rally Ronde del Ticino, but the overall victory went to his WRC colleague Kevin Gilardoni, as in 2016. Ivan Ballinari won the Swiss classification for the first time with the Ford Fiesta R5 (pictured). There were actually three different winners at the 20th Rally Ronde del Ticino. Kevin Gilardoni, a driver based in [...]
There were actually three different winners at the 20th Rally Ronde del Ticino. Kevin Gilardoni, an Italian based in Soazza in the Misox, took the stage win, as he did last year. This time not on a Hyundai i20 WRC, but a Ford Fiesta WRC from Movisport in Italy.
However, the Franco-Swiss only marked a best time on the new first SS Penz from Friday evening in the Mendrisiotto. On this 3.6 km long special stage, the northern Italian Andrea Crugnola, who comes from Varese near the border, experienced severe engine problems on his Citroën DS3 WRC, so that right at the beginning he suffered an uncatchable gap of 22:51 minutes to the first rally leader and later overall winner.
With best times on the five SS of Saturday's second stage, which included two runs of the SS Valcolla (14.58 km) and three in Isone (6.74 km), Crugnola indicated that he would have been unbeatable. At least morally, the semi-professional could feel like a winner.
The third winner of the Ticino Ronde, for which there are fewer SM points than usual due to its shortness (52.96 km), was Ivan Ballinari. The Ticino native was only once (Valcolla 2) the fastest representative from the R5 class behind the two WRC drivers Crugnola and Gilardoni, who were superior in terms of material. But "Bally" otherwise stayed on the ball and thus captured third place overall as well as the first victory in the Swiss classification since he has been driving the Ford Fiesta R5.
However, Sébastien Carron, whose winning streak ended in Ticino, was fighting with his back to the wall this time. From the start, a loss of power (turbo) on Balbosca's Ford Fiesta R5 made itself felt, which the Valaisan was unable to make up for even with his driving skills. Nevertheless, it was enough for second place in the SM ranking ahead of Michael Burri (Ford Fiesta R5 Evo), Greg Hotz (Skoda Fabia R5) and Cédric Althaus (Peugeot 208 R5).
In his first and probably only SM event this year, Hotz was the fastest among the Swiss drivers. The eight-time champion was the best R5 driver on SS1, 3, 4 and 6, and was even faster twice than the overall winner in the more powerful WRC.
Unfortunately, the driver from Neuchâtel slightly touched a wall on SS2, which resulted in a slow puncture and a time loss of 46 seconds to Ballinari. As a result, Hotz had to settle for 5th place overall at the rally finish in Lugano.
Ruedi Schmidlin and Erich Götte were the only team from the German-speaking part of Switzerland to start with the Mitsubishi Evo X. They finished 18th and 14th respectively in the Swiss classification and unrivaled winners of the R4.
