Moscato Rally: Ballinari makes a comeback
WINNER UNDER PAIN Although Ivan Ballinari is not yet fit, he took part in the fourth SM race in Piedmont. The reward is victory and important SM points, which bring him closer to the top of the standings again. Only a dozen Swiss teams had registered for the Moscato Rally in the Langhe region of Piedmont, which is new to the SM calendar [...].
Only a dozen Swiss teams had registered for the Moscato Rally in the Langhe region of Piedmont, a new addition to the SM calendar. With championship leader Steeves Schneeberger, Ivan Ballinari and Cédric Althaus, at least the three title contenders had traveled to Italy.
The start of "Bally" was not a matter of course. The Ticino native was still suffering from the after-effects of an operation on a spinal disc, which prevented the Amag employee, who had been leading the championship until then, from taking part in the Rallye du Chablais at the beginning of June.
Despite considerable pain, he now climbed back into the Skoda Fabia R5, accompanied by regular co-driver Paolo Pianca. In the end, he was rewarded for his efforts.
First in the lead, then Olivier Burri retires after a time penalty
To fill out the field a little, former champion Olivier Burri also took part with his Skoda Fabia R5. He was also the one to fly the Swiss flag on the first stage on Saturday evening, which consisted of three 10.15 km passes of the Torre SS, in second place behind the Italian Chentre in another Skoda.
However, the driver from Bernjurassi changed tires without permission before SS3 when it started to rain, which did not go unnoticed by his opponents. Race control promptly punished this offense with two penalty minutes.
Burri decided not to start the next morning, as he no longer thought he had a chance of finishing on the podium over the remaining 53.5 kilometers (2×3 SS).
Luck for Chablais winner Schneeberger
Steeves and Isabelle Schneeberger were extremely lucky on the first stage when they only damaged the right front suspension of their Ford Fiesta R5 in a crash. After an emergency repair, they were able to continue the race. However, the SM leaders fell well behind Ballinari/PIanca and Althaus/Bayard, although the latter also made a few mistakes.
Ballinari battled bravely through great pain and ultimately finished in a fantastic second place overall, 54.3 seconds behind local hero Elvis Chentre (winning time: 54'02.0).
Cédric Althaus/Jessica Bayard (Ford Fiesta R5) had no chance against Ballinari on Sunday, but still finished fifth behind two other Italian Skoda teams.
With his deficit from the previous evening, Schneeberger refrained from attacking the two Swiss riders ahead of him, as he did not want to jeopardize his championship lead.
With his third place in the SM standings, however, the man from Jura is only five points ahead of Ballinari, who kept his title chances alive with his risky venture.
Strong performance from Scheidegger
Jonathan Scheidegger from Vaud did very well, not only defending third place in the championship ahead of Althaus in his Citroën DS3 R3T, but also only having to narrowly concede victory in the R3 group to a single Italian competitor.
After technical problems with their Ford Fiesta S2000, the Basel-based team of Ruedi Schmidlin/Erich Götte had to pull out of the race on Saturday evening.
Instead of his usual Porsche 997 R-GT, Marc Valliccioni competed with one of his BMW M3s, as he wanted to prepare for two upcoming major historic rallies in Italy. The Corsican, who drives with a Swiss license, was vastly superior to his local VHC rivals - he would even have achieved eighth place overall in the field of modern cars with the 30-year-old rear-wheel drive car.
Information and photos: Jürg Kaufmann
