Rally: Sébastien Carron also wins in the Jura

Sébastien Carron already took the lead on the short loop with three special stages (SS) on Friday evening and was eight seconds ahead of Pascal Perroud after just under 28 minutes of driving time. Ivan Ballinari was already 16.3 seconds behind in fourth place. Olivier Burri quickly got into a good rhythm in the rented Porsche 911 GT3 in front of his home crowd and broke away from the trio of Ford Fiesta R5s in third place.

On Saturday morning, Sébastien Carron seemed to consolidate his lead on a track that remained dry before the Ticino rider turned up the pace. As the rain set in, Bally set four fastest SS times in succession, gradually reducing the gap to the Valais driver, who was less fortunate in his choice of tires. Before the final stage, Ivan Ballinari was only five seconds behind, but missed his last chance with a time-consuming spin.

Olivier Burri at a clear disadvantage in the rain
The victim of the rainy final stage was Olivier Burri, who was clearly at a disadvantage with the rear-wheel drive car. In the end, he lost the battle for third place against Nicolas Althaus in a Peugeot 208 R5 by just six seconds. Nicolas Althaus benefited from Pascal Perroud's bad luck, who only had rear-wheel drive on the last SS due to a broken front drive shaft on the Fiesta R5 and thus slipped from P3 to P5.

Urs Hunziker (8th) in the Mini Cooper WRC was unable to keep up with the pace of the leaders and lost additional time because the engine stopped several times. Ruedi Schmidlin and Erich Götte took no risks at all in the Fiesta S2000 at the first start after the accident in the fall of 2015 and only finished 12th. Cédric Althaus won the Clio R3T Alps Trophy ahead of all the French drivers. Aurélien Devanthéry won the Junior Championship ahead of three other drivers in Peugeot 208 R2s.

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Photos: Jürg Kaufmann