Lukas Eugster: From hill climb to slalom
SCENE CHANGE Another of last year's eight participants in the Swiss Junior Mountain Championship has fixed his race program for 2018. Runner-up Lukas Eugster will compete in the slalom championship with an older Formula Renault 2.0. On Tuesday evening his fans found out on Facebook, now the readers of AutoSprintCH: Lukas Eugster, 2017 Junior runner-up on the mountain, is switching to a race car [...]
On Tuesday evening his fans found out on Facebook, now the readers of AutoSprintCH: Lukas Eugster, 2017 junior runner-up on the mountain, is switching to slalom racing with a race car.
The change of scene is for reasons of common sense. Purchasing or renting a Toyota GT86, like the one the Appenzeller drove in the Swiss Race Academy, seemed too costly for him to stay in hillclimb racing. In addition, as a switch kart driver, he had his eye on a race car anyway.
Now his long-time colleague Raphael Koch is making his Formula Renault 2.0, built in 2001, available to him on good terms. This is associated with a switch to the slalom tracks. The 28-year-old knows this discipline from earlier kart slaloms.
Lukas Eugster: "The risk is still too great for me with a race car on the mountain. Besides, we have some beautiful, fast and challenging slaloms in Switzerland. I'm looking forward to this new challenge."
Role model Dominique Aegerter
Against cracks like Philip Egli, Marcel Maurer, Yves Hängärtner and Jean-Marc Salomon - who have replaced each other as day winners in the last few years - Eugster naturally has no chance in the two-liter race car class, if only because of the material. That's why he's primarily concerned with driving fun and learning.
Lukas Eugster: "My goal is to compete with the other drivers on original Formula Renault cars. If it should rain, I'm expecting a lot. I know from Robin Faustini that a Formula Renault is easy to drive in the wet."
With existing sponsors and new patrons, the customer service advisor at Hirsch Automobile AG in Abtwil has raised the budget for the entire SM season, including the slalom test days in Ambri. He is now hoping for an additional contribution via the crowdfunding platform "I believe in you".
Lukas Eugster: "I became aware of this through Dominique Aegerter and this year's Race Academy rider Desirée Blumer. As a result, I hope to be able to afford two or three more sets of new soft racing tires."
Good luck, Lukas!
