WORLDRXCOMESTO BLOWSINBELGIUM
French man moves into title contention with a win. by Hal ridge
Only in the most unusual of circumstances is pole position not the optimum place to start a motor race. But, as Mattias Ekstrom, Timmy Hansen and then Johan Kristoffersson discovered in the semi-final and final stages of the Belgian round of the World Rallycross Championship last weekend, pole was certainly not the place to be.
The second day of the series’ third round at the Mettet circuit had started damp, become increasingly wet and then started to dry again for the knock-out stages. However, some parts of the former street circuit venue dried quicker than others and pole position remained more slippery than the second row of the grid.
Having set the fastest time in Q4 to steal top spot in the Intermediate Classification and pole position for semi-final one ahead of Peugeot driver Hansen, former World RX champion Ekstrom was the first to experience the perils of the slippery pole grid slot at the start of the first semi-final.
As the lights turned green, the Swede made a poor start and dropped to fourth before the first corner. He fought back to third by the finish to book a place in the final as Kristoffersson won from PSRX Volkswagen team-mate Petter Solberg.
If things had been bad for Ekstrom, for his compatriot Hansen they were even worse. Beaten away from the start by team-mate Sebastien Loeb from the front row, Hansen was the victim of a four-car squeeze that sent him into a spin and his 208 WRX entered the first corner backwards.
In one of the drives of his career, Hansen battled back and passed Janis Baumanis, Guerlain Chicherit and Timur Timerzyanov to climb into a final place, while Loeb cruised to victory to join Kristoffersson on the front row. But, thanks to his higher position of third in the Intermediate standings over Loeb’s fourth, it was Kristoffersson who took pole position.
True to form, Loeb’s Peugeot made the best launch as the lights went green to take the lead, while Solberg and Ekstrom, who had started behind on rows two and three, drew level with Kristoffersson as the points leader struggled for traction away from the line.
In the short run to turn one, the Swede was squeezed into the wall on the inside of the circuit, his Polo riding up the barrier, sending it onto two wheels. The only thing that stopped the Volkswagen Motorsportbuilt car rolling onto its roof was Solberg’s sister Polo alongside.
Surprisingly, Kristoffersson maintained third position in the dive down the hill after Turn 1, Hansen having snuck inside into second. Fourth behind his team-mate on the opening tour, Solberg was first to take his compulsory joker on lap one, dropping to the back of the pack.
As Solberg set the fastest lap of the day, Kristoffersson responded to his colleague’s move by taking his joker on the second tour, but returned to the main circuit behind Solberg. Both advanced a position when Andreas Bakkeurd, who had recovered from pointing the wrong way to the intended direction of travel on the entry to Turn 1, also took his joker.
In a bid to cover off the VWS, both Peugeot drivers Loeb and Hansen took their jokers on lap four, but while Loeb maintained track position over those who had already taken their jokers, Hansen was passed by Solberg, despite his efforts to retake the position into the first corner of lap five.
By virtue of those ahead taking their joker laps, Ekstrom moved into the lead in the closing stages of the race but dropped to fourth when he also took his joker on the final lap, beating Kristoffersson in a dash to the finish line for the first nonpodium position.
Up front, Loeb retook the lead on the final lap to score his and Peugeot’s first win since the Latvian round in October 2016. The result moved Loeb to second in the points ahead of Solberg, who finished second on track in Belgium ahead of Hansen, who finally made it onto the podium in 2018 having displayed the pace to do so in the opening two rounds of the year.
While Kristoffersson had been fortunate not to overturn his Polo completely in the first corner contact, Jerome Grosset-janin, driving the GCK team’s Prodrive-built Renault Megane R.S. RX wasn’t so lucky, landing the car on its side at Turn 1 in his Q4 race, putting him out of a semi-final paying position.
His team-mate Chicherit did make it through but wasn’t able to replicate his round two performance by making it into the final. Swede Kevin Eriksson was denied a chance of challenging for a place in the semis when his Olsbergsmse Ford Fiesta Supercar was forced out in Sunday morning’s warm-up session with a broken front differential.