Clio Alps Trophy: It doesn't get more exciting than this 🎥

FINALE FURIOSO With 1.3 seconds on Nicolas Lathion, Ismaël Vuistiner secured victory in the Clio R3T Alps Trophy at the Rallye du Chablais. The Valais native is thus closing the gap to the top of the standings. The Rallye du Chablais could not have started better for Ismaël Vuistiner and Florine Kummer. The team set the pace from the first special [...]

Editorial - June 5, 2019

Styve Juif was in the lead until a mistake, then went to the limit again, as here in SS12, but in the end only finished third.

The Rallye du Chablais could not have started better for Ismaël Vuistiner and Florine Kummer. The team set the pace from the first special stage and held the lead until they were slowed down by a puncture in the last SS of Friday's stage. This cost them three minutes and two places. Styve Juif/Celiane Michel took the lead, followed by Nicolas Lathion/Yannick Schriber.

Things didn't go so well for Karl-Friedrich Beck/Jörg Stierle. The German duo crashed on the first stage over the Col de la Croix. Thibaud Mounard/Thierry Marrel followed suit in SS3, leaving only three Renault teams in the race.

Vuistiner revs up
Ismaël Vuistiner never gave up and achieved four best times in a row on Saturday morning. The onboard video from SS7 "Les Rives" shows how much work and effort his co-driver Florine Kummer put into this.

https://www.facebook.com/ClioR3TAlpsTrophy/videos/322462955348783

Accordingly, the gap to his Valais canton colleague Nicolas Lathion shrank quickly. Meanwhile, Styve Juif for his part maintained the high rhythm and managed the "given" lead sovereignly.

U-turn on the last loop
Before the last four special stages on Saturday afternoon, the team was a comfortable 1'46 minutes ahead of Lathion and 2'20 minutes ahead of Vuistiner. It seemed to be a done deal, especially since the Frenchman slightly increased his lead with the fastest time in SS11 Bex-Lavey.

However, the tide was to turn quickly. On the subsequent spectator circuit in Collonges, the leading team got stuck off the track for a moment and lost around two and a half minutes to Vuistiner/Kummer. This meant that the outcome of the third championship round was once again open before the final two stages. Now the new order was Lathion/Schriber ahead of Vuistiner/Kummer (17.5 seconds back) and Juif/Michel (26.8).

Nicolas Lathion regularly drove fast, saw the victory in front of his eyes, but then had to settle for second place.

The winners of the Rallye Pays du Gier and Critérium Jurassien were unable to do anything about this third-place finish. It was a different story for Ismaël Vuistiner, who once again turned up the heat in the last two special stages. The 2017 champion turned a 9.9-second deficit into a 1.3-second lead on the final 7.5 kilometers of SS14 Bex-Lavey. Vuistiner thus snatched his first victory from under Lathion's nose.

Title fight comes to a head
With Vuistiner/Kummer's first win of the season, the 2019 Clio R3T Alps Trophy is once again completely open ahead of the final two rallies - Mont-Blanc Morzine from September 5-7 and Valais from October 17-19. Juif/Michel are just ahead of Vuistiner/Kummer with 560 points in the standings with 563 points.

Lathion/Schriber (355) may also still have faint hopes of winning the title if things go against the grain for the two frontrunners, while Beck/Stierle (272) and Mounard/Marrel (111) only have theoretical chances. The champion team will receive a free factory entry in the Rally Monte Carlo in January 2020 from Trophy partners Renault Switzerland, Renault Sport and Michelin.