Wangen: Wintsch wins, Schmid celebrates 🎥
TRADITIONAL SLALOM FINALE As in the previous year, Lotus champion Dino Wintsch won the popular season finale at the Wangen SZ airfield. IKSM champion 2019 is Noa Schmid on Subaru BRZ. In beautiful autumn weather, 91 competitors started the final round of the 2019 Intercantonal Slalom Championship (IKSM). In suitably ideal conditions, the drivers from the Lotus V6 Cup Suisse were able to demonstrate the performance of their production sports cars [...]
In beautiful autumn weather, 91 competitors started the final round of the 2019 Intercantonal Slalom Championship (ICSM). In correspondingly ideal conditions, the drivers from the Lotus V6 Cup Suisse were able to fully exploit the performance of their production sports cars. Dino Wintsch, however, had to stretch to secure the day's victory at the Wangen slalom for the third time in a row.
The boss puts pressure
In the first run on the 1040-meter course, Norbert Sieber was just a tenth of a second behind him. The second run, however, thoroughly failed the brand manager and Cup leader of Lotus-West in St. Gallen. With another time almost six tenths faster, Wintsch made everything clear at the wheel of his optimum Lotus Exige 430 Cup.
Sieber's first time was still enough for second place overall. With a second super run, Fabio Nassimbeni managed to break the Lotus phalanx with a John Cooper Works Mini from the L2 category, pushing Giuliano Piccinato into fourth place.
Winner with banana in the exhaust
Noa Schmid also managed another par force performance. Because he converted his Subaru BRZ from a turbo to a naturally aspirated engine after the last technical failure in the slalom at the Anneau du Rhin, the driver from Kriens no longer competed for the day's victory in Wangen ("It feels as if someone has stuck a banana in the exhaust"). But in fifth place overall, Schmid was by far the fastest driver with two liters of displacement without a turbo.
Schmid closes the gap to Pfyl
With six hundreds from nine runs, Schmid, like Wintsch, reaches the countable maximum of 600 points. Thanks to the better first strike result, the IKSM title 2019 goes to him.
The decisive factor in the end was his day's victory in the half-snow-covered Seewen slalom on May 5, where he beat Wintsch in a direct duel in the L4 over 3000 cc. However, due to scheduling conflicts, the architect from Hombrechtikon only competed in seven slaloms, of which he won six.
For Noa Schmid, it is already the fourth ICSM title win after 2015, 2016 and 2017, thus closing the gap in the list of ICSM slalom champions to Josef Pfyl, who also captured the title four times in this championship held since 1975 in the early days.
And another victory for Muzzarelli
To round off the season, a dozen drivers also competed on the new Suzuki Swift Sport. As in the Suzuki Swiss Racing Cup, a few hundredths of a second decided the L1-3000 class, which they dominated.
With a 0.04 lead over Simeon Schneider, champion Marcel Muzzarelli also retained the upper hand in Wangen. As in the Cup, Schneider occupies third place overall in the 2019 IKSM, followed by no fewer than five other Suzuki riders who had signed up for it.
The onboard video of Silvio Romano, who finished third in L4-2000 with his Opel Astra G OPC, shows the course of the Wangen slalom.
