Johan Kristoffersson is on a
straight route to his first FIA World Rallycross Championship
title as he again combined his good Volkswagen Polo GTi RX
with flawless driving when it really mattered, winning his fifth
event of the season, the fourth win in a row.
The rain during the Saturday and early
stages of Sunday made things pretty even between the top competitors,
with Johan Kristoffersson having to work his way to the top hard as
the threat of Sébastien Loeb was near, while Mattias
Ekström completed the top-3 qualifiers. The Peugeot-Hansen
side looked pretty strong at home, with Timmy Hansen being right
behind the leading trio and Kevin Hansen putting some good
performances out there.
The semifinal 1 started with Toomas
Heikkinen having his rocket start ruined by a tap from Ken Block
while Johan Kristoffersson, Mattias Ekström and Petter Solberg were
secure in their positions as the rest of the grid was way behind.
Kristoffersson was strong during all
the race, só much that even some wheelspin didn't affect his winning
run. From Ekström the same couldn't be said as the same mistake
handed the second position to Solberg, but the EKS RX owner had
enough gap to stay in third and qualify to the final.
The second semifinal had a
Peugeot-Hansen front row while the third driver was right behind, a
perfect opportunity to secure all the remaining slots to the final,
but Andreas Bakkerud was eager to ruin the party by staying in
third. In conditions similar to Loeb's first win at Latvia, the WRC
legend dominated without mercy until the fifth lap, when the Joker
lap work favored Timmy Hansen, letting the Swede win this race.
Comfortable with his position, Bakkerud completed the top-3 and
qualified too.
Kristoffersson kept his lead in the
final with Loeb and Hansen ready to attack in case of a mistake but
it was a question of two laps until Kristoffersson started to open
the gap, and while that on Lap 4 Hansen left the fight with problems,
prompting Ekström to the podium.
Joker laps were still a need to the top
contenders but Loeb's hopes were broken when Kristoffersson did a
flawless job when crossing the Joker, leaving the home boy behind and
winning in dominant fashion.
Kristoffersson now has 241 points
against 195 of Solberg and 180 of Ekström and the 387 points of PSRX
Volkswagen put the team in an absolutely comfortable lead against the
279 of the Team Peugeot-Hansen and 236 of EKS, meaning that the last
three rounds are crucial for a turnaround, starting with the Latvia
RX at Riga on September 17th.
PHOTO: FIA World Rallycross Championship
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