Slalom Bière: Egli fends off the attackers
EXCITING DECISION AT THE SM-AUFTAKT Slalom record winner Philip Egli had to pull out all the stops in Bière to keep Yves Hängärtner in the Dallara GP3 entered for the first time and Lukas Eugster behind him.
Eric Berguerand was missing because a spare part for the starter engine of his Lola-Cosworth did not arrive in time in Valais via Fedex. But with Yves Hängärtner in the ex-Jenzer-Dallara GP3 with a newly developed turbo engine from Eggenberger Motorenbau and Joël Volluz in the Osella FA30, Philip Egli had two other opponents from the race car class up to three liters displacement who could challenge him for the day's victory.
Three-way fight for fractions of a second
Lukas Eugster was also in top form a good two and a half years after his last slalom start in the Ligier-Honda sports car, although he had to install a less powerful Honda CN engine at short notice.
Thus, after the first race run on the course (4.1 kilometers and 71 gates), which was run in the opposite direction for the first time, only 78 hundredths separated Egli from Hängärtner and 89 from Eugster at the Bière barracks. Their maximum speed was over 200 km/h....
But because his run was anything but clean, Egli knew he could still make gains, which he did. Earlier, Eugster had come only marginally closer to him despite an aggressive run, but thus displaced Hängärtner from second place overall. After a scoring error on the first kilometer, the GP3 driver who had started after Egli and Eugster broke off his final attack.
So Philip Egli celebrated another stage win in his optimal two-liter Dallara - soon to be 40 - this time with a 1.33-second lead over Eugster and 1.51 over Hängärtner.
The air is getting thinner for Egli
However, the man from Glarus is aware that the tide could soon turn in his favor. If not in two weeks in Frauenfeld, where he has been unbeaten for years, then a week later on the faster airfield course in Ambri, where two SM races are taking place at the same time.
In Ticino, Lukas Eugster (left gallery) could make the most of his sports car's aerodynamics and the traction gained thanks to wider Avon racing tires, as could Yves Hängärtner the Egmo power in the rear of the Dallara GP3 (center gallery). The man from Biel started at 400 to 450 hp and was himself surprised at how quickly he got to grips with the new race car without any test drive on dry surfaces.
Joël Volluz (right gallery) also did well in his first start since the Les Rangiers hill climb in August 2019, although he clearly lagged behind the top trio - an Osella FA30 is not designed for slaloms either. His next outing will be in mid-June at the new edition of the La Roche-La Berra hill climb in Gruyère.
Short joy from Christoph Zwahlen
There was also a three-way battle in the touring cars and GT cars. Exactly eight years and eight months since his serious accident at Massongex in 2013, Christoph Zwahlen (lower gallery, left) was again leading a timesheet in the closed race cars. But it did not stop there.
The man from Thurgau experimented with the tires for his Porsche 997 GT3 from the Interswiss group and probably didn't quite reach his best time in practice for other reasons. However, Christian Darani in the Fiat X1/9 from Group E1 (lower gallery center) already beat this in the first race run with the overall eighth-best time of all competitors - bravissimo!
Victory in the E1-2000 class with the largest number of participants ahead of the equally convincing Mathias Schläppi in the much heavier Suzuki Swift S2000 theoretically also gives the Ticino driver the championship lead, as in the event of a points tie - as was the case last time in 2021 - class strength is the deciding factor. The official ranking lists Bernhard Mühlemann in a Ford Focus as the Group E1 winner, but the race car time from the first round is illusory.
Bürki wins despite goal error
Martin Bürki (gallery on the right) also burned a hammer time into the concrete and asphalt track in the second run. Unfortunately, he touched a pylon in the process, but this did not detract from his performance.
Having beaten all the larger-displacement competitors except Darani with the small 1600cc E1 Polo with the previous safety run made him absolutely satisfied. And since his class was already pleasingly full in Bière with the help of some MB teammates, the defending champion remains on the ball in the head-to-head duel with Darani right from the start.
