The FIA World Rallycross
Championship started its 2017 season this weekend at Barcelona,
and with the high level of drama that culminated in the first season
win for Mattias Ekström, rallycross has everything to even
hold a place in the hearts of those used to asphalt-only competitions
at the Ciurcuito da Catalunya-Barcelona.
The qualifiers were a lottery from Q1
to Q4, be it because of the rain on Saturday or the high
competitiveness of Sunday, as it was hard to point a favorite. Timo
Scheider in quite surprising fashion was the top qualifier, with
former DTM rival Mattias Ekström coming in second and Johan
Kristoffersson in third.
First semifinal is on and Johan
Kristoffersson passes Timo Scheider on the first corner, while
Scheider blocks Toomas Heikkinen advances to second place. On
the bottom of the field, Kevin Hansen got a punt and spun in the
gravel trap. The race wasn't giving margin for errors, and Heikkinen
ruinde his weekend spinning in the gravel infield, being relegated to
the back of the pack.
Scheider was leading until lap 5 but he
still had the Joker to do, and this opened the way for Kristoffersson
to get the lead, while Scheider held up Petter Solberg coming from an
early Joker strategy to be third placed. Things kept like this as
distance was big and no threats to the qualifiers appeared.
When semifinal 2 started Andreas
Bakkerud was side by side with Mattias Ekström until the Swede
get the lead. Timmy Hansen started to put pressure on Bakkerud for
second place but lost contact on Lap 3.
With fourth placed Guy Wilks not even
near of representing a threat to the top-3, Ekström, Bakkerud and
Timmy Hansen took the Joker at the same lap and kept it going clean
until the finish line.
The final couldn't be more
unpredictable with the contenders that got into it, and at the start
Kristoffersson stalled and Ekström had the lead all for himself,
although followed closely by the rest of the field.
While Ekstöm and Scheider were still
to Joker, hell broke loose from third place as Bakkerud had to hold
Solberg, Hansen and Kristoffersson. He tried to close the gap to
Scheider but it was too far when the German left the Joker. Scheider
was close enough to attack Ekström but not even a single gap was
available, so Ekström saw the checkered first. Bakkerud still
finished third after the late attempt into second place and his
troubled Saturday.
Ekström leads the
standings with 29 points against 26 from Scheider, 22 from Bakkerud
and 21 from Kristoffersson. EKS RX and PSRX Volkswagen Sweden share
the teams lead with 40 points each, while Hoonigan Racing Division
comes in third with 33 points.
Next World RX stop will be at
Montalegre in Portugal, the former championship opener, on April
22nd-23rd.
PHOTO: EKS RX
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