The Lånkebanen
circuit at Hell, Norway, was the venue of the fifth round of the FIA
World Rallycross Championship, and in
this sunny weekend, Andreas Bakkerud
won his first race in 2016 and made history for Hoonigan
Racing Division.
The charismatic
Norwegian did what Petter Solberg
and Mattias Ekström
tried and failed in previous races, as he had four perfect runs in
the qualifiers and led without a doubt. Along with him, Timur
Timerzyanov appeared as another Ford
surprise this weekend, as his good runs gave him the second place in
the intermediate standings. On the other edge of the table and of the
luck, Ken Block
had various problems with his car and a weekend to forget.
No thought of
slowing down passed through Bakkerud’s mind in the first semifinal,
as he rocketed his Ford Focus RS RX, leaving only dust to Timmy
Hansen, Johan Kristoffersson and Toomas Heikkinen.
An early Joker Lap
wasn’t a successful strategy for Sébastien
Loeb after starting side by side with
Bakkerud, but he was still able to salvage a third place, being
unable to overtake his team mate Timmy Hansen, and miles away from
semifinal winner Bakkerud.
In the second
semifinal, Timerzyanov took early lead while his World
RX Team Austria team mate, Janis
Baumanis, was victim of the pace and
aggressiveness of Mattias Ekström, who sent Baumanis off the racing
line and almost into the barriers.
Unlike last year,
when Timerzyanov destroyed his Ford Fiesta ST RX and some other cars
in the process, the rapid Russian kept it clean, safe and in the lead
from lights to flag, resisting to pressure from Ekström who was
following him closely. Petter Solberg got the last spot to the final,
trying everything in terms of driving to evade the pursuit of Davy
Jeanney and Robin Larsson.
The surprises of the
weekend were in the front row in the final, and took different paths
as the race was on, with Bakkerud in the normal route while
Timerzyanov went to the Joker Lap.
After that,
Bakkerud’s job was trying to keep his good pace to be ahead of
Timerzyanov at the exit of the Joker, but contact on Lap 5 took the
Russian out of contention, promoting Timmy
Hansen to second place and Mattias
Ekström to third, but neither of them was able to cast a shadow into
Bakkerud’s victory.
As a member of a new
team, Bakkerud made history in various ways: first win of the Ford
Focus RS RX after just five World RX events, first non-Scandinavian
team to win in World RX and Hoonigan is the first American team to
win in World RX.
Ekström still leads
the championship with 125, but Solberg is right behind with 120,
while winner Bakkerud is ffith with 81 points. EKSRX
leads between the teams with 195 points against 151 Team
Peugeot Hansen.
In three weeks time,
on July 3rd,
Höljes, in Sweden, completes the Scandinavian tour before World RX
leaves Europe.
PHOTO: EKSRX
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