Latvia held its
first FIA World Rallycross Championship
event this weekend at the capital Riga,
and along with a circuit debut in the Bikernieki Sports Base, it was
also the first World RX win for the rally legend and multitask driver
Sébastien Loeb,
overcoming tricky surfaces like in his WRC days.
This weekend could
be counted as the worst one for Petter
Solberg, as a contact with Mattias
Ekström in Q2 disqualified him from
the heat, which was Solberg’s first DQ in his three years of World
RX. To worsen the situation, he crashed into the barriers in Q3 as
the rain hit the circuit hard and made things really difficult,
making him unable to reach the semifinals for the first time, staying
in 19th after the qualifiers.
The top of the table
saw Johan Kristoffersson
as the top qualifier, with Andreas
Bakkerud in second with strong
performances and Mattias Ekström in third, trying to capitalize more
into Solberg’s bad weekend. The other surprise of the weekend was a
good one, as the updated SEAT Ibiza RX qualified to the semifinals
thanks to DTM ace Timo Scheider,
who managed to stay in eighth in the table.
Local presence was
the attraction of the first semifinal, with Janis
Baumanis achieving third place right at
the start, although the local hero ended up in the wall later on.
With the top-3 formed by Johan Kristoffersson, Sébastien Loeb and
Timmy Hansen being a bit ahead, it would be a tough race for Reinis
Nitiss.
Loeb tried to attack
Kristoffersson in the final lap, which proved to be the right choice
as he won the race by a tiny margin, with Timmy
Hansen completing the top-3. Both
Latvia representatives couldn’t do much to change their troubled
races, ending in fifth and sixth.
The second semifinal
started with Timur Timerzyanov chasing Mattias Ekström for first
place while Andreas Bakkerud had to deal with a charging Timo
Scheider while in third place. With the increasing gap between the
first two and the third, it the last Final spot would be down to a
battle between Bakkerud, Davy Jeanney and Scheider, with Robin
Larsson as the outsider. Both Ekström and Timerzyanov didn’t take
any risks, finishing first and second, while Bakkerud’s solid race
kept the third spot for him.
The final was
expected to be awesome in the rain and Loeb dealt with Ekström
quickly, blocking his way and taking first place. Unlike the others,
Timerzyanov didn’t go past the first corner, crashing heavily in
the wall but leaving his Ford Fiesta ST as quickly as possible
without any injuries.
Incredibly solid in
the lead, Loeb was able to even open the gap to Ekström, with
fastest lap after fastest lap to then go for the Joker in the fifth
lap, leaving it without any interference, just having to keep it tidy
until the finish line.
Ekström built now a
huge lead with his 228 points while Kristoffersson takes second place
with 201 points, relegating Solberg to third with his 194 points.
EKSRX situation in the teams’
standings got a bit tighter, as they lead with 353 points but Team
Peugeot-Hansen is in close pursuit with
345 points.
Estering is the
venue for the next World RX event on October 14th,
and Mattias Ekström opted to defend his World RX lead rather than
race in the DTM season finale at Hockenheim in the same weekend.
PHOTO: Team Peugeot-Hansen
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