A slow start in qualifying soon turned into a series of good performances of Johan Kristoffersson in the first visit of the FIA World Rallycross Championship to South Africa, and this paid off with another win for the Swedish driver, the seventh in 2017, as contact somehow dictated the results at Cape Town.
New track meant discoveries here and there for everybody, so things were pretty balanced in the first two qualifiers with Ken Block leading at halfway, but stellar performance in the Q3 and consistency in a tight fought Q4 gave the top qualifier status to Johan Kristoffersson, though with Hoonigan, Peugeot-Hansen and EKS on fire with their various drivers, things weren’t easy for the Swede.
On Semifinal 1 Kristoffersson shut the door of Mattias Ekström to help Petter Solberg in his quest for second in the standings, but the World RX double champion got stuck in the middle of the pack. In fact Kristoffersson was doing his job and so was Ekström, and Solberg was fighting as much as he could to go above fourth by capitalizing from his early Joker.
Solberg was ready to a solo dash to the finish in the final lap but Ekström was leaving the Joker to spoil the party, but the DTM expert faced Kristoffersson in front determined to park the Volkswagen Polo GTi RX if it was needed to stop Ekström, but the EKS owner came with a solution to his problem: run over Solberg’s bodywork and go past it. Kristoffersson in the end came with the cleanest line and won the race while Ekström went off track and finished second and Solberg ended in third.
On Semifinal 2 Ken Block conquered the lead by force over the Peugeot-Hansen cars and a smashed front bumper wouldn’t stop the Hoonigan. Block opened the gap to the Hansen brothers, and Kevin got the worst luck by losing third position to Timo Scheider, going to an eventual breakdown.
Timmy Hansen then pushed hard to reach Block and when the American completed the Joker the older Hansen brother took the lead and the win in the race, while Block secured second place from Scheider.
Some minutes after the Semifinals, Block’s Focus RS RX was declared underweight, and with this he was excluded from the results of the weekend and Kevin Hansen joined the Final.
In the Final it was an open way for Kristoffersson while sparks were flying between Ekström and Solberg for second, as it was in the championship, and splitting the two PSRX Volkswagen cars was a good thing for Ekström.
Kristoffersson kept going while the threat of Timmy Hansen appeared and was growing right behind, but there wasn’t enough pace for the Peugeot 208 WRX to reach the already crowned World RX champion, who comfortably won it. As for the final podium spot, Ekström closed the door to Solberg and didn’t let him pass, clinching third place and second in the drivers standings.
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