Chamblon: day with a surprising end

After the two training runs on the 4300-meter course in the hilly and wooded barracks area of Chamblon, the case seemed clear. With 2'55.269 Philip Egli already marked the best time in the first trial run, while Lukas Eugster - in the absence of Marcel Maurer the only equal opponent - only beat the three-minute mark by almost two tenths in the second training run. Egli's sixth consecutive win on the day in Chamblon and in the 2019 Swiss Slalom Championship seemed merely a formality.

Involuntary run repetition as a handicap
The Appenzeller, who started with start number #1 on his Ligier JS 53 Evo, set a time of 2'58.828, which the man from Glarus easily had to beat with his Dallara EPR-2 a little later. Stupidly, a competitor in the race cars caused an interruption just at the moment when Egli had left the starting line. Instead of stopping him immediately, he was allowed to drive at race pace to the spot where other competitors had already been stopped before him.

It came what had to come. At the run repetition the favorite was exactly one second slower than Eugster.

Philip Egli: "I had no brakes and no more tire grip. You can't do two fast runs in a row at these temperatures. Annoying, because the aborted run would have been good."

Bad surprise for Philip Egli
For the first time in his career, Lukas Eugster, second in the Berg Championship Junior two years ago, saw himself at the top of a one-day classification. In the second run, the sports car driver didn't quite match his first time, while Egli's safe second run took him to 2'57.542 and seemingly the day's win after all.

The nasty surprise followed when looking at the ranking list. Egli was given ten seconds for an alleged gate error that he had not committed and could prove on video. Unfortunately, he missed the protest deadline, so that he was no longer heard by the race organizers. At least he got the class win in front of Denis Wolf in the Formula Renault Caparo and the 20 SM points for it.

Unexpectedly to the day's victory
Lukas Eugster thus unexpectedly came to his first day victory, although he did not want to win it in this way. For this reason, he also emphasized in a sportingly fair manner at the award ceremony that it was not him but someone else who should be at the top.

Lukas Eugster: "I'm sorry for Philip. That's just the way the rules are. But I can't help it, so I'll take this victory anyway. But now I would like to prove in the last two slaloms after the summer break that it is also possible without such interventions."

The highlight: only on the way home did the day's winner find out that he had also been given a gate fault - after the results list had been posted. The race in Chamblon therefore leaves a very dull aftertaste in terms of the attentiveness of the marshals.

Pyrrhic victory for Martin Bürki
Undisputed was therefore only the third overall place of Michael Helm in the Tatuus-Abarth F4, this for the third time in a row after Bure and Romont. His brother Andreas steered the TracKing Suzuki to fourth place overall before the first touring car driver followed. This was once again Christian Darani in the Fiat X1/9 with a 2'11 time from the second run.

After the first run, the Ticino driver was already in the lead among the "Hüsliautos". However, he was only eleven hundredths ahead of Martin Bürki, although the latter had caught up with team-mate Heinz Gfeller in the Ford Fiesta shortly before the finish. For understandable reasons, see Egli, Bürki did not insist on a repeat run, but mounted new tires on his VW Polo for the second heat in order to hunt for the touring car best time after the already secure class win in the E1-1600.

Unfortunately, halfway through the race, the exhaust pipe in the side sill came loose. Instead of stopping, Bürki continued, missed his previous time due to the lack of power caused by the defect, and now has fire damage in the car to boot. Like Egli, he can console himself with the class win and the 20 SM points.

Bürki, Egli and Thöni go into the summer break as leaders
As a sovereign winner of the N/ISN-1600 in the Peugeot 106 GTi, Hanspeter Thöni was also rewarded with full points. Thus Bürki, Egli and Thöni jointly lead the SM table before the three-month summer break (until Slalom Drognens on September 22).

Meanwhile, runner-up Manuel Santonsastaso made a great breakaway. Beaten in Bure and Bière by his RCU colleague Jürg Ochsner in an Opel Kadett, the man from Thurgau was clearly the faster in his BMW 320 E21 in the very first race this time. "Santi" thus not only won the Interswiss group, but was also third best touring car driver overall, three tenths ahead of Danny Krieg in the Audi A4 STW, second behind Darani in the E1-2000.

Now five and ten points behind the leading trio, Darani and Santonastaso also still have a chance of winning an SM medal, but they will have to hope that one of the leaders has a bad weekend. The Chamblon slalom has shown how quickly this can happen.

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