Slalom Bière: Martin Bürki sets himself apart
SWISS SPORT The Bière slalom ended with a razor-thin victory for Jean-Marc Salomon over Marcel Maurer and Philip Egli. Defending champion Martin Bürki was absolutely the greatest in the small VW Polo in the touring cars. At half time of the Slalom-SM he is already clearly in the lead. At the 52nd Slalom Automobile de Bière, the spectators witnessed a terrific three-way fight [...]
At the 52nd Slalom Automobile de Bière, the spectators witnessed a terrific three-way fight for the day's victory. After the first race run on the 4100 m long track with 63 gates, Philip Egli was in the lead, just like in practice. The man from Zurich managed to get his Dallara-Opel F3 running again in the days following the accident in Bure.
In the second run, Egli's new best time did not last long. Two cars later, Marcel Maurer raced through the light barriers two tenths faster before final runner Jean-Marc Salomon beat his time of 2:24.402 by a tiny six hundredths.
So the day's victory went to the man from Jura with the Tatuus-Honda FM borrowed from Bossy Racing. In four out of five SM runs there was another overall winner with this. Only Yves Hängärtner could already win twice with his former Formula Master (Interlaken and Bure). The man from Bern was absent due to illness and would certainly have had a say in the victory.
Maurer accepted the trophy for second place with one laughing and one crying eye: In the first training run, the drive shaft broke on his Tatuus-Renault, in the second he spun and so he virtually rolled up the field from behind.
Furious Martin Bürki on the way to 5th slalom title
As great as the variety at the top of the individual races is, it is disadvantageous for the fast race car drivers. While they achieved 2nd and 3rd place in the Swiss championship in 2016 with Egli and Maurer, this year they can practically kiss a medal place goodbye.
But Martin Bürki is well on his way to a fifth slalom title. The 49-year-old from Berne shot out of all guns on the Waffenplatz and set two fabulous times in the 1600cc Polo in 2:37 minutes. These were only 1.3 tenths apart and 3.5 seconds better than those of the second-placed touring car driver!
Barring any unforeseen events, the deserved champion in 2017 can only be Martin Bürki. After five of ten rounds, his lead in the standings is already 20 points. If you subtract the strike result from his 100 points, the garage owner from Uetendorf would still be in front, tied on points with Stephan Burri (who finished second in the InterSwiss group with his VW Polo behind Frédéric Neff in the Porsche GT3) and Daniel Wittwer.
Manuel Santonastaso celebrated the second win of the season in the E1 two-liters with his BMW 320. For the third time in a row, Daniel Wittwer in his VW Golf had to settle for a very close second place here, but his consistency and the points for it are now proving valuable nonetheless.
Albin Mächler narrowly escaped an accident with his BMW M2 in the second race. However, his time from race 1 was enough for the class win in the largest displacement E1 vehicles. Jürg Beiner in the Ianniello Lancia as class winner up to 3.5 liters remained clearly behind Mächler's only time despite two attempts.
The three-time mountain champion thus moves up to fourth SM place (78 points), followed by Santonastaso (75) and Maurer (74) as the best-placed race car driver. As Stephan Burri prefers the Hemberg hill climb to the next slalom SM round in Romont, which takes place at the same time, there will be further shifts in the standings.
