The 2019 FIA World Rallycross Championship started and was decided with a bang. If in 2015 contact and stewards decisions took a victory from the Team Hansen, this time they came on their favor, which was the debut victory for Swedish youngster Kevin Hansen in his Peugeot 208 WRX.
Extreme heat during the day was one of the problems of the purpose-built track at the Yas Marina Circuit, as track limits and big kerbs appeared as problems for the drivers, with a bunch of them falling victim of at least one of these factors.
Timmy Hansen was dominating the qualifier with two flawless races in Q1 and Q2, but in Q3 a race ending, high speed crash with Andreas Bakkerud brought terminal damage to the roll cage, so the car had to be retired. Bakkerud alleged that a communication failure about the finishing procedure led to the crash.
Without Timmy around, Kevin Hansen had to cover for Team Hansen MJP, and he duly delivered with wins in Q3 and Q4, earning the top qualifier spot and doing the best race of all heats in Q4. Behind Kevin Hansen the fight was completely open despite Niclas Grönholm appearing in second, and Timo Scheider, Janis Baumanis and Anton Marklund coming behind and having excellent performances during the qualifying.
Semifinal 1 had Kevin Hansen start like a rocket and getting the lead while Reinis Nitiss clipped the Turn 2 kerb, flew over Anton Marklund’s back wing and destroyed the suspension of his Hyundai i20 RX. Hansen had Scheider on his back during the whole race, though the German couldn’t do more than this, while Liam Doran qualified to the final after a clever move where the Monster Energy RX Cartel driver tricked Timur Timerzyanov to outbreak himself and open the way to overtake.
On Semifinal 2 Janis Baumanis was the only driver with some free space as Rokas Baciuska battled his way to second against Krisztian Szabo and Niclas Grönholm. Baciuska was left behind after sustaining damage from a contact with Grönholm, and while Baumanis and Szabo were battling for first, Grönholm simply found his way past them to win the race, with Baumanis and Szabo coming behind the GRX TANECO driver.
The final had Kevin Hansen protecting his lead from Grönholm, with the Finn following the Swede from a really short distance. After three laps on the pressure, Grönholm forced his way past Hansen by unsettling the Swede, and with Grönholm’s pace being unmatched, he won the race by a good margin over Hansen, with Liam Doran completing the podium in a quite safe race from him.
Some hours later, the stewards decided that Grönholm’s contact was excessive and gave him a 3 second penalty, promoting Kevin Hansen to the win in the Final.
The clean sweep at Abu Dhabi gave Kevin Hansen 30 points against 26 of Niclas Grönholm and 20 from Janis Baumanis and Timo Scheider. GRX TANECO is the leading team though, with 39 points, while Team Hansen MJP is in a close second with 38.
Two weeks separate this weekend’s event from the next one, at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona in Spain, on April 28th.
PHOTO: FIA
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