Weekend balance: Coppens celebrates, Feller trembles 🎥
WINNER AND CHAMPION Mike Coppens won the rally final and the SM title in Valais. At Hockenheim, Rolf Ineichen took a GT3 race win, while Ricardo Feller remains at the top of the standings after a podium.
The cross-section presented by the video portal Rally Start provides beautiful action scenes of the R.I.V. 2021
At the 61st Rallye du Valais, Sébastien Carron seemed to be on his way to victory and the championship title after setting the best SS times on Thursday and Friday. But on the first special stage on Saturday morning, he hit a hidden stone with his Skoda Fabia R5 and destroyed two wheels.
The home rally was thus over for Carron and the other Valaisan was automatically champion. Mike Coppens, however, did not show any signs of weakness and won an exciting duel with Michaël Burri in the only VW Golf GTI R5 in the final phase.
With victory in his home race, the 42-year-old from Verbier fulfilled a long-cherished dream, the crowning glory of which is his first SM title. Jonathan Michellod (Skoda) climbed onto the overall winners' podium in third place.
Places 4 and 5 went to Sergio Pinto (Alpine A110 RGT) and the Belgian Peter Tsjön (Skoda).
Feller still at the top of the table
Among the Swiss drivers involved in the ADAC GT Masters at Hockenheim, Ricardo Feller and Rolf Ineichen shone. With his strong performance in qualifying (2nd) and in the first half of the race on Saturday, the 21-year-old from Aargau played a major role in the second place that partner Christopher Mies safely drove home in the Audi R8 fielded by Land Motorsport.
On the other day, Mies only qualified for the midfield, whereupon seventh place was damage limitation. As a result, the duo still has a four-point lead at the top of the standings. The decision will be made on November 7 at the Nürburgring, where theoretically 13 drivers still have a chance of winning the title.
Among them is Rolf Ineichen. On Sunday, the fastest non-professional in the field took his first win of the season and the fourth of his career in a Lamborghini after optimal preparation by his French partner Franck Perera.
The highlights of race 2 show how Perera/Ineichen drove to victory in commanding style.
Delétraz and Frey on the ELMS podium
In theory, Louis Delétraz was already certain of being champion before the four-hour final round of the European Le Mans Series. After finishing second together with Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye on the Algarve Circuit in Portugal, the Geneva native was also practically it, as he simply had to get to work to score as well as his partners.
Rahel Frey was also able to celebrate. The woman from Solothurn brought the Ferrari from Iron Lynx home in a respectable third place in the ten-team GT category after good preparation by Sarah Bovy and Michelle Gatting.
Fabienne Wohlwend sixth in the W Series
In the USA GP, Fabienne Wohlwend only managed a ninth-place finish in the first round of the W Series. Despite dropping out in the second race, the Liechtensteiner only lost one position in the championship and qualified in sixth place for the third season of the women's racing series in 2022.
Jamie Chadwick won both races. The Briton thus successfully defended the title she won in 2019 and will once again collect half a million US dollars in prize money.
First off-road success for ABT Cupra
There was also a jubilant mood in the Allgäu region near the border on Sunday evening. Jutta Kleinschmidt and Mattias Ekström brought the all-electric Cupra XE entered by ABT in Kempten around the track in second place at the Iceland X Prix in Sardinia. This was the first podium in Extreme E for the German team and the Spanish brand.
The winner for the third time in four races so far was the duo Johan Kristoffersson/Molly Taylor from the team of former F1 world champion Nico Rosberg. At the finale on December 19 in Wales (GB), the title can only be snatched from them with a lot of bad luck.
