Kallio conquers FIA RX2e round at Höljes

In what can be considered one of the tightest contests of the Höljes Rallycross weekend, the FIA RX2e Championship saw Finland’s Jesse Kallio outpace title contenders Guillaume De Ridder and Fraser McConnell and do a little more in his first win of the season.

The Q1 was sign of what would be a tight affair, with three seconds separating most of the field, while Fraser McConnell barely outpaced Guillaume de Ridder and Jesse Kallio, and although the Jamaican driver kept his top position in Q2, he did it by a tiny margin over Nils Andersson, while De Ridder and Linus Östlund were also in the party to threat the Olsbergs MSE driver.

Jesse Kallio showed his pace again by leading the Q3 ahead of McConnell while De Ridder dropped back, and the same drivers topped the Q4 again, with McConnell topping the Qualifying ahead of Kallio and Nils Andersson.

Semifinal 1 had Fraser McConnell holding his lead over Nils Andersson, who faced problems later in the first lap, leaving the Jamaican leading Linus Östlund and Damien Meunier, while a late Joker and going full power was the strategy for Patrick O’Donovan, which only served to place him in third, watch McConnell and Östlund get ahead and protect himself from Meunier by sticking to the main pack.

In the second Semifinal, Kallio followed the same start tactics by McConnell as he protected the inside from De Ridder, clocking best laps one after another to keep the De Ridder in place, which was trhe thing that worked on his favor until the checkered flag, while Isak Sjökvist took the third Final spot as Pablo Suárez was simply too far to make a move.

The best two of the weekend were in the front row of the Final, McConnell at the right and Kallio at the left, but Kallio made it work from the outside, and things were working well in favor of the Finnish driver, as McConnell was pressed by O’Donovan, making it impossible for the Jamaican to focus on the attack. With O’Donovan going to the Joker on Lap 5, McConnell had room to breathe and switch focus, but it was simply too late to do an extra push, so he had to watch Kallio getting first place out of a decisive move and blistering pace.

RX2e Höljes - Event results

De Ridder holds the lead with 51 points while Kallio has 50 and McConnell has 49, so every point at the next event at Lohéac will be of massive importance for the three drivers on 5 September. For the French round, former World RX drivers Reinis Nitiss and Cyril Raymond will be added to the 10 car grid, along with American rising star Conner Martell, and the tenth entry is still open as McConnell may be forced to skip this round to work on his Nitro Rallycross commitments at the end of September.

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