Sunday was the day where the top drivers in RallyX Nordic could push their cars closer to the limit, and recreating the duel from the 2020 World RX event, Johan Kristoffersson has beaten Mattias Ekström for the second win at Höljes and a comfortable lead in the standings.
Unlike the mess seen on Saturday, the top contenders started together on Sunday in Q1, which made for a fast run that secured their position together, resulting in faster heats and some sort of monopolization of the table. Johan Kristoffersson topped the table with wins in Q1 and Q2, while Niclas Grönholm got second with consistency in all heats, while Mattias Ekström was third with a win in Q3 compensating for subpar runs in Q1 and Q2.
From fourth placed Enzo Ide to eighth placed Thomas Bryntesson, everybody looked like a certain threat to the top dogs, should any of them make a mistake.
Semifinal 1 had Kristoffersson and Ide side by side into Turn 1, at least until Kristoffersson got pushed to the Joker by the rest of the field. Enzo Ide was leading but his Joker lap put him behind Kristoffersson, and the two effectively defended themselves from Sondre Evjen’s threat, as he pushed hard but not enough to mount an attack.
The second Semifinal saw Grönholm control the field in a Hyundai 1-2-3 with Anton Marklund and Peter Hedström, but without Joker laps done, they were slowly falling into Thomas Bryntesson’s hands, with the Norwegian stealing the lead from Grönholm in the final lap and keeping a firm hold of it despite having Grönholm and Marklund hot in his rear wing.
The third one had Ekström on a rocket start, bringing Yury Belevskiy with him while the rest of the field was having their argy-bargy moments. With Anders Michalak too busy defending the third place from Andreas Carlsson, Ekström and Belevskiy kept their positions with no threats, qualifying for the Final with certain ease.
The Final was a bit of an reenactment of Q1 Race 1, with all the big guys in the grid, and with the win at the line, Kristoffersson was trying to get away from Ekström while Bryntesson went for an early Joker, which was blocked by Enzo Ide in the following lap. Ekström’s Joker kept him in second, meaning this would be a battle of two with Kristoffersson, but the KMS driver held it to the Final Lap on pure consistency as Ekström’s mistake in the Joker and a puncture proved to be costly in the long run, so the EKS driver had to see Kristoffersson get his second win of the season.
RallyX Nordic - Höljes results
Kristoffersson has the lead with 57 points against 44 of Grönholm and 43 of Ekström. With the season running until July as Strägnäs will host the finale, it may not interfere with the commitments in World RX that Kristoffersson and Grönholm have, and the third place may prove to be a motivational boost for Ekström to stay for a while like he did in World RX 2020.
For the next round, the drivers will cross the border in two weeks time, as the highly regarded Kouvola circuit in Finland will host rounds 3 and 4.
PHOTO: Kristoffersson Motorsport
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