Auto Slalom: Team Germany charge to gold medal ahead of Slovakia, Georgia

Team Germany stamped their authority on Auto Slalom at the 2022 FIA Motorsport Games by beating Team Slovakia and Georgia to the gold medal.

Driving the electric Opel Corsa e-Rally, German duo Marcel Hellberg and Claire Schonborn flew through the last 16 and then disposed of Team Czech Republic in the quarter-finals by a combined 14 seconds despite the rapid Hallberg picking up four cone strikes along the way.

They would face up against the impressive Team Georgia who narrowly got the better of Team Hungary in their quarter-final, but a number of cone strikes by Mevludi Meladze cost them time early on in the semi-final against a rampant Germany who won comfortably by almost 50 seconds to progress to the final.

The second semi-final would be between Team Slovakia and Team Croatia, who had seen off the attentions of Team Israel and Team Latvia respectively to reach the final four.

What followed was a much tighter affair. Croatia’s Iva Damarija suffered time penalties on the opening runs that amounted to 15 seconds, which gave Slovakia the chance to move into the final narrowly with a 2.4s triumph after a fine opening run by Michaela Dorcik, sharing with David Nemcek.

Schonborn put in a decisive opening run to give Germany the initial advantage in the Final, swiftly backed up by Hellberg as the pair cemented their stranglehold on Auto Slalom by claiming the gold medal with a 13.7s victory buffer – Slovakia taking the silver.

In the Small Final for the bronze medal it would be Georgia’s Meladze and Irine Onashvili that came out on top by 8.5s over Croatia, with an otherwise very close contest affected by a total of 18s worth of time penalties that ultimately cost the latter despite two superb course-winning efforts by Nenad Damarija.

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