Slalom Bure: A race with surprises
SWISS SPORT On terrain that was completely new to him, Yves Hängärtner won the fourth slalom championship round in the Jura. Philip Egli retired due to a stupid accident, Daniel Kammer was fastest touring car driver with his Honda and Martin Bürki offered another master performance. Due to extensive reconstruction work on the barracks area of Bure at the extreme tip in the canton of Jura [...]
Due to extensive renovation work on the barracks area of Bure at the extreme tip of the canton of Jura, the Ecurie des Ordons presented a largely newly laid out course. With a length of 5509 m and 117 gates, the fourth round of the Swiss Slalom Championship demanded everything from the competitors.
The fact that Yves Hängärtner emerged victorious with one of the fastest race cars in the field - a Tatuus Honda from the former Formula Master - was not a matter of course. And a bit of a surprise for him, too: "When it rained in the morning and there was mud everywhere, I lacked motivation. I only found that back after the clear best practice time."
In the afternoon it remained dry, whereupon the times tumbled in both the first and second race runs. After the first clear best time, Hängärtner said he was "fortunately not resting on my laurels.
Local hero Salomon improved namely with the Tatuus-Honda FM borrowed from Bossy by almost 8 seconds, Maurer in the Tatuus-Renault by 3.5. Hängärtner found for his part 5 seconds and thus remained 1.3 seconds ahead of Salomon, who pushed Maurer by 1.4 seconds to third place. Jeremy Noirat, who switched from the VW Golf to a TracKing Suzuki, also shone in fourth overall.
Last year's winner Philip Egli was unlucky. In the first race run, he hit a pylon that pushed the front wing of his Dallara-Opel under the vehicle and made it uncontrollable. As a result, Egli slid straight through a meadow in the turn onto a lower-lying cross road. With too much broken on the car, he loaded up and now hopes to repair it in the few spare hours until next Sunday's Bière slalom.
Chamber was once again the hammer
The fastest touring car driver this time came from the E1 two-liter class. As a week ago in Saanen, the order was Daniel Kammer in the Honda Civic ahead of Daniel Wittwer in the VW Golf. Kammer also won the overall touring car classification.
Martin Bürki achieved another feat. In seventh place overall, he was only marginally slower in his VW Polo 1600 than the two Daniels and faster than all the other race cars and all the large-displacement touring cars. The latter were led by Danny Krieg in a Porsche GT3 ahead of Hermann Bollhalder in an Opel Speedster and Albin Mächler in a BMW M2. This is also a new order.
Bürki extended his lead in the championship from 5 to 10 points, as Stephan Burri suffered a defeat in Group IS up to 1.6 liters against the surprising Andy Lanz in the Toyota Corolla.
SM score after 4 of 10 runs: 1st Bürki 80, 2nd Burri 70, 3rd Wittwer 65, 4th Maurer 59, 5th Mächler 58, 6th Lanz, 57.
