The FIA
World Rallycross Championship visited
Germany again this weekend, but now the venue was the classic
Estering circuit in Buxtehude. In a weekend when Mattias
Ekström ditched DTM in favor of his
World RX title chances, the Swedish driver didn’t disappoint,
finally getting the crown that was from Petter
Solberg until today.
This was the
opportunity to see the definition of the title race between Petter
Solberg, Johan Kristoffersson and Mattias Ekström, but also a chance
to see the Euro RX drivers facing the full time World RX competitors
after the end of the European season, which included the 2016
champion Kevin Hansen.
Petter Solberg had excellent runs on Q3 and Q4 and was the top
qualifier, barely ahead of Ekström, and behind them we had two
surprises as Kevin Hansen in third and Q1 winner Janis
Baumanis in fourth.
Semifinal 1 started
with Solberg having to deal with a hard charging Kevin Hansen, but
once he was able to stick his Citroën DS3 RX ahead, he was no match
for the rest of the field. Solberg’s pace was in another level
compared to his opponents, but Kevin Hansen and Andreas
Bakkerud were also fast, enough to
leave the tricky Estering joker without losing positions, and so
eliminating Timmy Hansen, Sébastien Loeb and Toomas Heikkinen.
Ekström needed to
do his job in semifinal 2 after Solberg’s impressive performance,
and he delivered the expected performance right at the start, not
giving a slight chance to Kevin Eriksson to overtake him. A bit
behind, johan Kristoffersson did a nice maneuver to jump to third,
leaving Davy Jeanney behind.
Ekström and
Eriksson were way faster than anyone, and went to the finish keeping
their positions, with Kristoffersson barely qualifying to the final
by beating Janis Baumanis after the joker.
The final had
Ekström and Solberg on the first row, but it was a question of a
corner to see Kevin Eriksson
steal the attention and the lead of the race by going totally
sideways while Ekström was thrown to fifth due to a mistake.
Eriksson’s mission would be tough with Solberg and Bakkerud close
to him, and somehow the circuit’s tricky layout helped him to keep
the first position and get his debut win with some ease. Solberg
still had to battle with Bakkerud for the second place, being able to
pass only before the finish line, and Ekström didn’t go past fifth
place, but this was enough to secure the 2016 season title.
Ekström’s
advantage of 30 points to Solberg (251 vs. 221) gives the first World
RX title to the EKSRX owner after two seasons as a full time
competitor. He can still lift the teams’ trophy in Argentina as the
battle is still open, with EKSRX
having 385 against 368 from Team
Peugeot-Hansen. The season finale at
Rosario will be on November 25th.
PHOTO: EKSRX
Comments
Post a Comment
Do you have an opinion? Feel free to comment.