Swiss driver Yury Belevskiy could enjoy the second event of the RallyX Nordic double header at Riga extracting the maximum pace that his Peugeot 208 WRX could offer when it mattered the most, beating the tough competition for a celebrated win for YellowSquad.
With the Latvian championship happening on Saturday (9), Edijs Oss, Andri Oun and Sven Oras were convinced to join the Nordic grid on Sunday (10), which brought the car count to 11 since Niclas Grönholm had to be absent due to extensive damage to his Hyundai i20 RX. With lots of contact and close fights, Enzo Ide prevailed in Qualifying while Yury Belevskiy, Sondre Evjen and Thomas Bryntesson were tied in second and Ole Christian Veiby completed the top-5.
Philip Gehrman was sixth but could have mixed himself within those above him in the intermediate standings, while RX2e winner Viktor Vranckx made a good show with his electric machine, clearly beating the Latvian championship entries and even Hans-Joran Ostreng’s Hyundai i20 RX.
While the sun was predominant in the Qualifying, the dark clouds that were around the Bikernieku Trase dropped as much water as possible, delaying activities due to flooding on certain parts of the track and even in the paddock. When the track was cleared for the Semifinals, it was a mix between dry and damp depending of the point, but with a sunny sky again, at least no more water was expected.
Semifinal 1 started with the Audi S1s of Evjen, Ide and Veiby opened a reasonable gap to the second pack led by Vranckx to have their particular battles. Having separated strategies in terms of Joker Lap, Evjen had the advantage over Ide by a tiny margin, in which he held to win the race, with no rough battles between the top 3 as they were qualified to the Final.
Semifinal 2 had Belevskiy beating Bryntesson in the first corners while Gehrman was trying to catch up with the two in front. Belevskiy was clearly justifying his position with his pace, having a decent gap over Bryntesson to win the race while Gehrman settled for third place.
The Final had the fastest drivers of the weekend on the grid, but Belevskiy prevailed with the best thing he could come up with, which is beating the competition on pace alone to avoid being held behind someone in the early stages. Belevskiy protected his leading position by doing the Joker in the Final Lap, going to a point where second placed Evjen wouldn’t be all over his rear bumper, just keeping neat to be the first to see the checkered, while Evjen settled for second and Bryntesson took third place from Veiby when the JC Raceteknik driver went wide in the final corner.
RallyX Nordic - Riga II event results
The good final part in the Sunday event put Belevskiy only in fifth in the standings, but his 89 points would only mean he has minimum chance to win the 2022 title, since Johan Kristoffersson and Niclas Grönholm share the lead with 113 points, Bryntesson is third with 104 and Evjen is fourth with 100, and all of them are expected to appear at the season finale at the renovated Strängnäs circuit on 24 July, as there are no clashes with other championships.
PHOTO: YellowSquad
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