Heja Höljes Rallycross, that place never fails to deliver action and wild scenarios, with the rain contributing massively to the chaos and mixing the order in the FIA European Rallycross Championship Qualifying and offering surprises in the Quarter Finals and Semifinals, but only one thing was certain, which was Johan Kristoffersson winning while having the best pace of the field.
Qualifying was a riot, with Johan Kristoffersson opening the activities showing he had pace to walk over the field with time to spare, but then Q2 arrived, Kristoffersson had an indirect contact with Andreas Bakkerud and Casper Jansson and was penalized, recovering his form with the best time in Q3 as most of the top contenders fell victim of rain in the last heat, which also brought some freak outcomes like Fabien Pailler missing the Joker in the last heat.
Sunday morning, rain is falling, and it got harder as Q4 was underway, pretty much turning the late heats irrelevant as the track became a pool and total times tumbled a full 40 seconds compared to the top time, but despite the Q4 top time going to Ole Christian Veiby, Juha Rytkönen was the top qualifier, with Veiby in second, Pailler third, Bakkerud in fourth and Ulrik Linnemann in a surprising fifth place.
At the bottom of the table, Q4 performance alone saved Anton Seppä’s dreadful weekend as traffic melee ruined most of his races. José Oliveira and João Ribeiro showed performance in the late heats, but their progress was halted by the rain, and still they were able to barely advance, along with Oliver O’Donovan, who was another victim of the Q4 rain and went straight to the barriers.
Not even the freak Q4 was able to save those outside the top-24, as Attila Mózer struggled all weekend, Filip Thorén and Tom Daniel Tånevik had a mix of panel beating and lack of pace in their one-off appearances, and Bart Bel wasn’t able to do anything too in the Ford Focus RX that Nathan Ottink led to a Montalegre win in RallyX South.
Quarter Final 1 had the SET Promotion cars locking the front, but with Joni Turpeinen in front of Rytkönen, all while Nils Volland had third place and Hans-Jorran Østreng spun in the second half of the track. While the SET Promotion drivers were controlling the race, Linnemann outsmarted Volland and took third place to not let it go until the finish, as the whole field was tiptoeing their ways into the wet track.
Next was Quarter Final 2, with João Ribeiro doing a rocket start and then defending the top spot from Peter Hedström, who found a way past anyway on Lap 2. Ribeiro’s Hyundai i20 RX was oversteering all over the place, so he fell to third and then fifth after the Joker. Hedström still had time to spare to stay ahead of Veiby while Martin Enlund was following both of them, and the positions remained like this until the finish line.
Quarter Final 3 had Kristoffersson jumping straight to first as Johannes Rafoss stood behind him and Paulius Pleskovas was holding Pailler for third. With Rafoss going off on Lap 3, Pleskovas and Pailler took the spots above, and since Pleskovas needed to Joker, he lost the second place to Pailler while Kristoffersson dominated the rest of the race.
The last Quarter Final saw Bakkerud dominate from the start while Viktor Kristensson was trying to find a way past a nearly blind Casper Jansson, as the mud was accumulating in the windshield. René Münnich took the third place when Kristensson went to the Joker. With Kristensson spinning in the final lap, Münnich and Jansson were safe while Bakkerud secured victory.
Joni Turpeinen and Juha Rytkönen had a mission to stop Kristoffersson in the first Semifinal, but the KMS Volkswagen Polo KMS 601 RX cut through the pincer attack to take the lead, and to matters worse, Linnemann outpaced Turpeinen to take the third place. With a majorly dry track, Kristoffersson had no issues to gallop to the win, while Rytkönen was isolated in second and Linnemann held the third position despite the car not playing along.
With Kristoffersson winning, Bakkerud had to win the Semifinal 2 to have a shot to the win in the Final, and the outside of the first row helped him too, leaving Hedström behind and shutting the door on Veiby and Jansson. Jansson did a clean Joker and this helped him get second from Veiby and then the first place from Bakkerud, leaving both to settle their differences to win the race.
KMS had two cars in the Final, SET too, but Jansson proved to be more of a challenge to Kristoffersson while Bakkerud was watching them from third place. With Jansson in front of Bakkerud, no one was attacking Kristoffersson and both were falling into Veiby’s clutches, with the Norwegian going to second in the final lap while Kristoffersson took the win.
Höljes RX - Event results
Kristoffersson now has 104 points over the 85 of Bakkerud and the 84 of Veiby, while Rytkönen has 72 and Turpeinen is slowly leaving the title race with 65 points. On 19 July, Mondello Park officially returns to Euro RX after two decades out.
PHOTO: FIA Rallycross Championships
Comments
Post a Comment
Do you have an opinion? Feel free to comment.