Berg-SM Junior: Happy end for Schmid
VICTORY DUE TO A BRAKER Thomas Schmid almost sank his Toyota on the Gurnigel. But the new junior mountain champion did not let the strong local hero Marcel Wälchli take away his fourth victory. Now he also wants to become Junior Rally Champion. In the fourth and final round of the Junior Mountain Championship, Thomas Schmid unintentionally made it exciting once again. That Marcel [...]
In the fourth and final round of the Junior Mountain Championship, Thomas Schmid unintentionally made it exciting once again. The fact that Marcel Wälchli from Kirchdorf was faster than the man from eastern Switzerland in all three training runs, albeit only by a hundredth of a second in the end, was due to the experience advantage.
Slipped from the brake pedal
Wälchli was familiar with the 3734-meter mountain track to Gurnigelbad from many private rides. However, the fact that Schmid was then also six tenths behind in the first race run had another reason.
Thomas Schmid: "Sometimes I brake on the left, like in rally racing. When I did that, I missed the pedal once when switching from the right to the left foot while braking. Fortunately, I wasn't very fast anymore. I was really lucky then and thought for a moment that it might not be enough..."
A novelty in the championship
Thus, for the first time in the past season, it was not the championship leader but his strongest rival Marcel Wälchli who headed the results list. But since Schmid made no secret of his mistake and showed everyone the video from the on-board camera during the lunch break, the interim leader did not hold out much hope for the continuation of this order.
With a clean second run in a time of 2'29.05, nine tenths below the record time of last year's champion Rolf Reding, Schmid restored the usual hierarchy. Wälchli, on the other hand, was no longer able to improve.
The 0.6-second gap turned into a lead of 1.89, which meant the fourth win of the season in the fourth hillclimb race.
Thomas Schmid: "Without mistakes I had hoped for 2'29 high, but never thought of such a good time. Whether I rode to arrive? Yes and no. I just didn't want to break anything, but once again concentrated to go as fast as I could without risk."
And now also junior rally champion?
Like Rolf Reding in the previous year, the 22-year-old from St. Gallen thus secured the Swiss championship title in the mountain juniors without losing any points. In addition, he set four class records at the wheel of the Toyota GT86 on Pirelli road tires, which remained unchanged compared to 2017.
He is already the runner-up in the junior rally championship. If he stays ahead of his arch-rival Jo Michellod at the Rallye du Valais on October 19/20, the second Swiss championship title can come out of it. This task is undoubtedly more difficult. But before he tackles it, he starts his three-year studies as a civil engineer next Monday in Rapperswil.
For Marcel Wälchli, joy prevails
With three second places Marcel Wälchli secured the runner-up title, which the Bernese is happy about despite the home defeat.
Marcel Wälchli: "I already assumed before the start that Thomas would drive to the front. His performances were really strong. Of course I would have been happy about the victory, but for me there was really nothing left to win at Gurnigel. I wanted to finish two runs at about the same speed without risking an expensive fender bender, so I could become runner-up."
One point decides about the third SM rank
The fight for third place in the final race and in the championship was still exciting. After the first race run, Luca Hodel was still 34 hundredths ahead of Sven Indermühle. In this order they had finished the penultimate race in Oberhallau.
The second local hero from Seftigen, however, did not want to let himself be robbed of the third place on the podium in front of his family and many colleagues, and in the end drove one second faster than before.
The Lucerne native, on the other hand, didn't do so well in his second run, so that Indermühle's third place at Gurnigel pushed him down to fourth place in the championship standings - one point behind.
Two-class society
As in the previous races, Brian-David Prina and Yves Meier led the second half of the ranking with a huge gap to the top quartet.
Meanwhile, Fabian Hug was able to release his headbrake somewhat since the accident in Reitnau and once again drive significantly faster than Desirée Blumer. However, the man from Weiningen has to keep the red lantern in the championship.
