ERIKSSON EDGES IT IN SWEDEN
Hal Ridge saw an Olsbergsmse Ford Fiesta interloper take glory
As he sat behind the GRX team’s awning after Q1 at Holjes last Saturday afternoon, reigning European rallycross champion Reinis Nitiss contemplated whether he really wanted to continue pursuing his rallycross dream.
All had to give best in Sweden to relative newcomer Sebastian Eriksson making a return with an Olsbergsmse Ford Fiesta. But for Nitiss, third place in the final was something of a redemption as well.
Nitiss endured a difficult year in a third Audi S1 for Mattias Ekstrom’s EKS squad in 2017. After that, the Latvian returned to the team with which he won the 2013 European Super1600 title, Set Promotion, and stepped down to the European Supercar Championship last year.
Driving a Fiesta, Nitiss claimed the title, and signed for the Set-operated Gronholm RX squad as test and development driver for 2019.
That deal included selected
World RX events in a third Hyundai i20 alongside Niclas Gronholm and Timur Timerzyanov.
Strong pace in the opening round in Abu Dhabi went unrewarded when Nitiss hit a kerb in the second corner of the semi-finals and was sent skyward, landing on the roof of
Anton Marklund’s Renault Megane.
Returning for a second appearance in Sweden, Nitiss’s weekend got off to the worst possible start – and it was as if the dark clouds were returning again.
Contact with Timerzyanov and compatriot Janis Baumanis on the run to Turn 1 sent his car sideways and he clipped the large kerb on the inside of the corner and rolled the Hyundai.
On another day, that incident, with a full grid of 25 cars at Holjes, would have spelt curtains for Nitiss’s podium hopes. But Q1 in Sweden delivered a barmy set of races with action aplenty, meaning the order was mixed up and the usual pacesetters didn’t have things all their own way, aside from fastest man Andreas Bakkerud.
The grid draw was reversed for Q2, meaning the slowest drivers from Q1 raced last and, as luck would have it for Nitiss, the Varmland circuit got drenched before the session, then started to dry throughout. That meant he ran in the best of the conditions and repaid his mechanics’ efforts with the fastest time.
Bakkerud took the overnight lead, then qualified top of the intermediate classification. Meanwhile, Swede Eriksson quietly went about his business on Olsbergsmse’s return to World RX with an updated version of its Ford Fiesta.
Just inside the top 10 in the first three qualifiers, while suffering sensor issues and oil temperature problems that caused the car to slow after three laps, Eriksson smashed in the fastest time in Q4 and climbed to second at the intermediate stage.
Starting from pole position in semi-final two, Eriksson lost the lead to a hard-charging Gronholm, but won the race when Gronholm picked up a puncture on the final tour. That secured Eriksson pole position for the final.
In semi-final one, leader Bakkerud dropped out of contention with a broken driveshaft on lap two. Kevin Hansen joined his compatriot on the front row for the main event, having survived a door-to-door battle with brother Timmy for three corners after the joker merge.
Nitiss also made it into the final to continue his dream fightback, while Kevin Abbring proved his debut World RX pace in Norway three weeks earlier was no fluke by also making the cut.
Kevin Hansen made a poor start from the front row of the final as Gronholm launched his way up to second by the first turn, and dived straight into the Turn 2 joker.
Timmy Hansen also had a good getaway from the second row and sent his Peugeot 208 up the inside of Gronholm’s Hyundai to take track position. Gronholm was slowed soon after by a left-rear puncture and dropped behind team-mate Nitiss. Timmy Hansen pursued the leaders, passing brother Kevin when the round-one winner took his joker on the third tour.
But, later the same lap, the elder of the pair clipped the kerb in the righthander before the circuit’s biggest jump, immediately puncturing his right-front tyre and running wide in the final corner. Kevin needed no invitation and took the position but, ahead, Eriksson had pumped in the fastest lap of the day before taking a fourth-tour joker.
With the knowledge that the car was carrying an oil temperature issue that would lower performance after the middle of the race, OMSE’S tactics had been clear: for Eriksson to extract the maximum in the opening laps then joker and defend his position as hard as he could. And that he did.
Regarded as one of the most naturally talented drivers in rallycross, and on only his fourth World RX start, Eriksson held Hansen back. That included resisting a lastgasp effort in the final corner to claim a maiden win at home.
Hansen’s second-place finish lifted him back into the points lead ahead of his brother, while an emotional Nitiss made the podium, his first since 2015.
Abbring also suffered a puncture in the final but was promoted to fourth when Gronholm was given a fivesecond track limits penalty.
Liam Doran endured a difficult weekend. He went off after the finish line in Q1 after contact, had spins in Q2 and Q3 and didn’t make the semifinals for the first time in 2019.
Fellow Brit Oliver Bennett also struggled, his BMW Mini hampered by a broken subframe limiting track time, before Bennett set 18th and 16th best time in Q3 and Q4 on Sunday.