Motorsport: Sébastien Carron and Philip Egli masterful

The decision in the Swiss Rally Championship was made on the first stage of the demanding Rally Mont-Blanc Morzine in the French High Savoy. After the retirement of Ivan Ballinari, who ended up in a ditch in SS3, Sébastien Carron only had to bring his Ford Fiesta R5 to the finish line to secure his second SM title after 2014 ahead of schedule. The Valais native won the Swiss classification within the French championship round, which replaced the Gotthard Rally in the SM calendar, which was postponed to 2017, without being challenged.

As the third Fiesta R5 driver Pascal Perroud did not appear and Marc Valliccioni had a serious accident with his Porsche 997 GT3 (vertebral injuries), Cédric Althaus in the Renault Clio IV moved up to second SM place with a ten-minute gap. Althaus thus also won the Clio Alps Trophy early, which guarantees him a works entry in the Rally Monte Carlo in January 2017. Aurélien Devanthéry finished third overall in the Peugeot 208 R2 and won the Junior SM, in which he is the clear favorite for the championship title after his fourth victory of the season.

Unique slalom on the Palexpo site
The most special slalom championship race was the one on Sunday in Geneva, where a 2.65 km long course with 73 gates was set out on the Palexpo grounds, starting in Hall 4. Philip Egli in the Dallara-Opel F3 was the fastest, with Marcel Maurer in the Tatuus-Renault coming within 0.77 seconds of him. Egli thus remains at the top of the standings together with Martin Bürki. The Bernese won the E1-1600 class ahead of his son Mike (both VW Polo) only with a safe second run after he had been disqualified earlier. Fastest touring car drivers were Daniel Wittwer in the VW Golf and Patrick Flammer in the Suzuki Swift Evo, who finished 4th and 5th overall among 56 participants behind Egli, Maurer and Jean-François Chariatte in the TracKing.

www.rallye-mont-blanc-morzine.com
www.slalom-de-geneve.ch
Photos: Jürg Kaufmann, Ramon Hänggi