Motorsport: A day winner from nowhere
SLALOM INTERLAKEN Few had him in mind - but AutoSprintCH did. Yves Hängärtner won the opening race of the Swiss Slalom Championship on Saturday. Philip Egli and Marcel Maurer could do nothing against him. In the touring car category Albin Mächler won in a BMW M2. The victory of Yves Hängärtner at the 21st Nat. ACS Slalom of Interlaken, was on [...]
The victory of Yves Hängärtner at the 21st Nat. ACS-Slalom of Interlaken, was on Saturday almost as undisputed as the one of Lewis Hamilton in the Formula 1 the day after. In contrast to China, there was beautiful spring weather in the Bernese Oberland as in the whole of Switzerland and thereby, in a figurative sense, a new flower in the national Swiss sport came up.
Yves Hängärtner won once with his self-built E1 Escort in changeable weather in Reitnau in the E1 group, otherwise the Bernese has been a blank sheet so far. Last year he contested two slaloms with a Formula Renault. Almost by chance, Hängärtner then came into possession of a Tatuus Honda from the former Formula Master (which a certain Fabio Leimer won in 2007), had it made ready for racing at Jenzer Motorsport in Lyss and started with it for the first race in Interlaken.
The rest is history: In practice as well as in both race heats on the 4.3 km long airfield circuit, fluidly set with 66 gates (top speed approx. 240 km/h), the son of former Formula 2 driver André Hängärtner played to the potential of the Honda engine, leaving last year's winner Philip Egli (Dallara F3) and his arch-rival Marcel Maurer (Tatuus-Renault) no chance. Hängärtner: "I'm surprised myself how well I got on with the car." Egli: "My tracks are still coming, too." Maurer: "I drove a boot (he used another word, red.) together."
Albin Mächler: With confidence and nerves of steel to victory
In the touring car category, too, a name that is familiar in the slalom scene but has never really been counted among the favorites was right at the top. However, only in training, because Jürg Beiner was not able to realize the potential of the Lancia Delta S4 rented by Bruno Ianniello in the serious competition.
Albin Mächler turned the tables after failing to get the 550 hp of his BMW M2 onto the road in practice. With a software intervention, he remedied the evil and celebrated his first overall victory with this car, which was newly acquired in 2016 and has been continuously optimized since then. "I didn't let Beiner's best time put me off, but believed in myself and that everything would work out."
Beiner's mentor Martin Bürki won his class inconspicuously but superiorly. The defending champion, however, seemed to take more pleasure in his son Mike's times, which were better than those of InterSwiss champion Stephan Burri in a comparable VW Polo.
In the strongest E1 two-liter class, Daniel Wittwer in the freshly motorized VW Golf (270 hp) initially thought he was the winner. But the posting of the results list revealed a scoring error, so that in the end Manuel Santonastaso in the BMW 320 came out on top.
In the OPC Challenge, Fabian Eggenberger from the Flammer Speed Team narrowly won the duel with runner-up Thierry Kilchenmann. In the Abarth Trofeo Slalom, Beat Wyssen in the Abarth 500 R3T remained the home champion.
