Ticino: Carron turns down "Bally
ONE-SIDED DUEL IN Ticino At the second start with a VW Polo R5, Sébastien Carron gave Ivan Ballinari, who had already been crowned champion, no chance in front of his home crowd. Jonathan Michellod is now the Junior Champion. Due to insufficient total length of the special stages, the Rally Ronde del Ticino had to be downgraded from type 3 to 4 this year, which [...]
Due to insufficient total length of the special stages, the Rally Ronde del Ticino had to be downgraded from type 3 to 4 this year, which meant that even fewer SM points were at stake. However, this had hardly any influence on the quality of the field of participants, which, as usual, consisted primarily of Italians and Ticinese, for whom this classification did not matter.
For Ivan Ballinari, it was significant in that he was now already mathematically determined as the successful defending champion before the "Ticino". If points had been awarded according to Type 3, his last rival Jean-Marc Salomon would have had at least a tiny theoretical chance of overtaking him with two runs to go.
Double victory for the Italians
The overall victory in the Ticino Sprint was once again decided between two Italians in superior WRC cars. This time, Andrea Crugnola in a Ford Fiesta clearly gave Hyundai driver Kevin Gilardoni, who had won the last three editions, the upper hand with five best times on the six stages. With a driving time of just over half an hour, Crugnola's lead was nine seconds. With a gap of 1'10.3, Sébastien Carron captured the remaining place on the podium in his second appearance this year.
Carron leaves no stone unturned
It is true that the 41-year-old Valais native initially fitted the VW Polo R5, with which he had already blown away all his opponents at the Rallye du Chablais, with tires that were too hard. Nevertheless, the three-time champion had all the opponents in his class under control right from the start. The old and new champion Ivan Ballinari fought back with his Skoda Fabia to the best of his ability, but had to acknowledge the superiority of the Carron/VW Polo pairing at his home race as well.
Although Kim Daldini's Skoda initially mutated into a front-wheel drive vehicle until the Rally Art team was able to replace the defective rear axle differential during the service after two stages, the second strongest Ticino driver classified himself as a good sixth overall behind his Italian Skoda colleague Di Palma.
At the same time, third place in the SM standings went to the Junior Swiss Champion of 2013, followed by. Stefano Mella (VW Polo) and Jean Marc Salomon (Ford Fiesta).
Althaus wins and Michellod celebrates title win
Besides Carron, Ballinari and Salomon, the six junior teams from the R2 class were the only participants interested in the SM status of the Rally Ronde del Ticino. Leader of the standings Jonathan Michellod only had to finish in second place in the event of a victory by pursuer Sacha Althaus to be confirmed as Thomas Schmid's successor even before the Valais finale.
Michellod initially tried to keep the aggressively driving Althaus at bay, but soon let him have his way, not wanting to jeopardize his early title win by taking excessive risks. Guillaume Girolamo with a third Peugeot 208 R2 was also well disposed and always stayed close to Michellod until a time penalty (30 s) put last year's winner decisively behind.
No chance for Erwin Keller
In the small field of historic cars, Marc Valliccioni was in a class of his own in his BMW M3. On the same model, the returnees Erwin Keller and Dominique Juplé from the Zurich Oberland lost more than a minute to the experienced Corsican driving with a Swiss license.
