The departure of the FIA World Rallycross Championship saw Kristoffersson Motorsport as the dominant force at the Istanbul Park, with Ole Christian Veiby taking the final win of the season and of the championship, while Johan Kristoffersson confirmed his eighth World RX title out of the 12 seasons of the competition.
With all cars competing under the World RX rules, naturally the Euro RX1 contestants would have to abide to a 50kg ballast in their cars for the first time in the season, and with only Free Practice to adapt to the extra weight in the car, the Qualifying clearly had a change, as those who were close to the RX1e cars struggled to clock the same laps. With this, the Kristoffersson Motorsport Volkswagen Polo RX1e were the class of the field, with Ole Christian Veiby beating Johan Kristoffersson, but both beating the rest of the field by 3 to 4 seconds, usually.
In the first Semifinal, Veiby got the lead immediately, and despite the best efforts from Joni Turpeinen and Damian Litwinowicz to follow the Norwegian, he was too fast for them. Turpeinen still kept second place, watching from afar while Veiby won the race, but Litwinowicz had a Final Lap crash that opened the way for Nils Volland to take the third spot and advance to the Final.
In Semifinal 2, Mika Liimatainen wasn’t too fancy of making it easy for Kristoffersson, but this eventually to a contact that caused Liimatainen’s Hyundai i20 RX to roll and stay with the right door in the ground, causing a red flag. The second start showed Kristoffersson taking the lead while Tamás Kárai was spun while battling Niclas Grönholm, and with this, Kristoffersson, Grönholm and Klara Andersson left the Joker Lap for later to take advantage of the extra pace compared to Atilla Mózer, with the order staying like it was until the finish line.
In the Final, Veiby had the advantage and didn’t measure the roughness to battle Kristoffersson to keep the lead while both CEDT cars went for the Joker Lap right at the start. While the KMS drivers were in their personal battle, Turpeinen and Volland were running for their lives to avoid the CEDT PWRs, with Volland being completely outpaced by them while Turpeinen lost the podium to Grönholm. Kristoffersson still battled Veiby for the win but failed to overtake in the Final Lap.
Istanbul RX II - Event results
Kristoffersson sealed his eighth World RX title with 144 points over 121 from Grönholm and 120 from Veiby, which also secured the teams title for KMS, as they had 264 points over 204 from CEDT and 126 from Hansen WRXT.
The World RX will be in an indefinite pause for now as the Euro RX will become the top rallycross championship for the first time since 2013, while an FIA Rallycross World Cup will be the only overseas competition, and the changes also mean that the RX1e class also going out of the scene. Interestingly, when asked about the future, Grönholm said on Sunday that he might explore other disciplines until the conditions are right for a return to rallycross.
PHOTO: FIA World Rallycross Championship
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