Raymond beats Rooke to RX2 title win
Rising star Thomas Bryntesson claimed his maiden European Championship Supercar victory in round four of the series at Loheac, while home driver Cyril Raymond secured the RX2 International Series title as main rival Dan Rooke failed to make the final.
Bryntesson qualified top in the Intermediate Classification and seized the lead of the Euro RX Supercar final on the opening lap before fending off pressure from GP3 race winner Tamas Pal Kiss in the closing stages to secure the win.
Reigning French champion Firmin Cadeddu completed the podium. Irish champion Derek Tohill maintained his 100 per cent record of making it into the final stages of European events in 2017 and qualified for the final, in which he finished fifth. Fellow Irishman Ollie O’donovan also made the semi-finals and produced the best launch away from the line in semifinal two from the back row, but crashed out in the joker after Turn 1 contact caused damage to his Ford Fiesta.
In RX2, reigning British champion Dan Rooke struggled on the specialist French circuit in the dry, and was hampered further still in the wet conditions of sunday. He made it into the semi-finals but didn’t progress to the final, meaning Raymond’s victory puts him 31 points clear with a maximum of 30 points available from the final round in South Africa. Guillaume De Ridder was second for the third event in a row with Vasily Gryazin going one place better than he had in Canada, in third. Kristian Szabo won the Super1600 final from French star Maximilien Eveno.