The final event of the 2018 FIA World Rallycross Championship season, the Cape Town RX in South Africa, had Johan Kristoffersson dominating again as the competition failed to take him out of another win, ending a legendary year that had the Swedish driver breaking records and lifting his second World RX title.
Kristoffersson was again dominating the qualifying table as a failure in Q1 was compensated by wins in Q2, Q3 and Q4, with the Swede being tied in points with Sébastien Loeb, although Timmy Hansen could be presented as a threat to Kristoffersson, as he was matching the pace of the PSRX VW driver, being quicker sometimes but failing to translate this into a consistent pace.
In semifinal 1, Kristoffersson just had to stay firm in his place to keep the lead as Timmy Hansen from the outside lane and Andreas Bakkerud with the bumps didn’t succeed to unsettle the PSRX VW driver. Soon the fight was between Kristoffersson and Timmy as Kevin Hansen wasn’t able to cope with the pace of those in front and Bakkerud binned it and retired.
Kristoffersson kept a solid run and won easily while Timmy and Kevin Hansen settled for second and third as no competition was around them.
On semifinal 2, Loeb couldn’t get the benefits of starting on the inside as Petter Solsberg’s acceleration was superior, and although the Norwegian had Loeb and Mattias Ekström on his back wing, he wasn’t exactly feeling the pressure. There were no threats to Solberg’s lead as Loeb became busy with Ekström behind him, though the positions didn’t change.
PSRX VW was dominating the front row in the final, and while Kristoffersson went smooth from the go, chaos came behind him as Solberg was defending the second place, only to spin and get punted by Timmy Hansen in the second lap, with the two retiring in the process.
Ekström was in front of Loeb and the positions were kept again, though their full power were far from enough to get close of Kristoffersson, who won his eleventh event in 2018 with some good tenths of second of advantage to the competition.
Kristoffersson ends a legendary season with 11 wins and 9 of them being in a row, scoring 341 points against 248 of runner-up Mattias Ekström and 237 of third placed Andreas Bakkerud. PSRX VW scored 568 points in what was a closer teams championship race, as runner-up Audi Sport EKS scored 485 points and Peugeot leaves the World RX with the third place and 423 points.
After the event, Mattias Ekström announced on social media that he will retire from full time World RX driving after being active since 2014 and choosing it over DTM after the 2017 season, leaving along with the Audi support to his team, EKS. No clarification was given over the team’s future as well the next destination of Andreas Bakkerud.
PHOTO: Volkswagen Motorsport
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