RIVALS’ SQUANDERED CHANCES
Johan Kristoffersson may have blown the opposition away in his dominant 2018 campaign but, if others had managed to keep a firmer grip of the ball, the Swede would not have racked up such an extraordinary tally.
It was Kristoffersson’s PSRX Volkswagen team-mate Petter Solberg who shone in qualifying at April’s season opener at Barcelona and put his Polo on pole for the final. But the Norwegian was forced into a tyre stack and out of the running by an exuberant Mattias Ekstrom at the first corner. Ekstrom won on track but was later disqualified, handing the win to Kristoffersson.
Having taken a podium for the Audi-backed EKS squad at Barcelona, Andreas Bakkerud qualified top at Montalegre and lined up alongside Ekstrom for the first semi-final. But the pair tripped over each other at the first corner when really the Turn 1 joker should have removed that potential. That mix-up effectively gifted Kristoffersson victory.
That was one of two possible wins lost to questionable tactics by Ekstrom’s team, which ran one-two in the Loheac final but held off jokering until late in the race and was beaten to the flag by Kristoffersson.
Peugeot’s first, and now only, term as a full works World Rallycross team began with a quartet of podiums for Sebastien Loeb, including victory at Mettet when polesitter Kristoffersson was forced into the wall at Turn 1. A new 208 WRX was launched for the Holjes round and it was Loeb’s team-mate Timmy Hansen who displayed race-winning form at the next event at Trois-rivieres in August, only for a mistake on the opening lap of the final to drop him back. Like EKS, Peugeot often challenged Kristoffersson on pace, but seldom strung a whole event together, although Loeb did appear on the podium seven times.
Solberg had a difficult season battling ill health and his team-mate. He dominated the US round at Austin, until a mistake with a lap and a half to go allowed Kristoffersson through. PSRX wrapped up the teams’ title with an event to run, while Ekstrom came out on top of a final-round fight at Killarney to be points runner-up.
There was a clear divide between the three works teams and the rest of the field, but Niclas Gronholm and Guerlain Chicherit impressed under the radar. Gronholm finished fourth on three occasions driving a Hyundai i20 for his father’s GRX squad, while Chicherit made the final at Montalegre piloting his own team’s Prodrive-built Renault Megane. His early season team-mate, Jerome Grosset-janin, scored the only non-works podium.