World Rallycross: USA
Kri st offers son claims another worldrx title.
Aweek after claiming his second career Swedish Touring Car Championship, Johan Kristoffersson arrived in Austin on the verge of his second consecutive World Rallycross Championship title.
On a new circuit to all drivers in the series, Kristoffersson was sixth fastest in free practice on Saturday morning, albeit just 0.06s behind pacesetter Andreas Bakkerud.
While practice times are largely irrelevant, it begins to matter from Q1. That was where Kristoffersson had his worst start to an event of the season so far. Stuck in traffic, the PSRX Volkswagen driver could only manage 13th overall, while his team-mate Petter Solberg stormed to the fastest time in the sister Polo.
Running in free air, Kristoffersson struck with a victory in Q2, and it looked like yet another occasion where the reigning champion had clawed his way back to the front of the order. That was until Solberg won the final race of the session and bettered Kristoffersson’s time by more than half a second.
Having publicly revealed before the previous round in Latvia that he has been suffering from a lung disease since he was diagnosed in the autumn of 2017, but was feeling increasingly better, Solberg was back to his best in Austin and sat top of the order at the end of the opening day.
It was Mattias Ekstrom’s turn to set a best time in Q3 as Solberg and Kristoffersson tussled in their race, then Kristoffersson stopped the clocks first in Q4. However, the etching of his name on the championship trophy would have to wait as he qualified behind his closest challenger in the points, Ekstrom.
Volkswagen duo Kristoffersson and Solberg started on the front of the grid of semi-final one with the pair splitting their strategies at Turn 1. Solberg remained on the standard lap while Kristoffersson dived into the joker. To cover off his fellow Polo Supercar racer, Solberg took his joker on the next tour and maintained track position. The pair moved to the front of the order when Peugeot driver Kevin Hansen also took his joker on lap four and dropped behind teammate and older brother Timmy.
Audi team-mates Ekstrom and Bakkerud also varied their joker laps from the front-row of semi-final two. Ekstrom saved his joker until the final tour and took the race win from Sebastien Loeb, who set the fastest lap of the day so far on lap five to remain ahead of Bakkerud to the flag.
The front row starters differed in joker tactics again at the first corner of the final as Solberg took the lead and Ekstrom headed straight for the joker. But, having started on row two, Kristoffersson knew his chance to climb up the order was to run in clear air on the technical circuit, and dived up the inside of Ekstrom’s Audi. Solberg got the call that Kristoffersson was free and responded by taking his joker on the next tour. The triple FIA world champion returned to the standard lap just ahead, Kristoffersson giving his team boss plenty of room into Turn 3.
Bakkerud took the lead, and went for his compulsory longer-route on lap four, dropping behind the Volkswagens but next to team-mate Ekstrom, the Swede running wide at the entry to Turn 3 which allowed Bakkerud to take the position.
That corner, the entry of which is a quick right into a tightening left-hander, was also the scene of the moment that decided that race outcome.
Arguably the key moment of the event had been Kristoffersson’s move on Ekstrom in Turn 1, but then Solberg made a mistake with less than two laps to go, locked the wheels of his Polo on the entry to Turn 3 and ran wide.
Kristoffersson hesitated, giving Solberg room to recover the car but his Polo was washed out in the loosest of the gravel section and Kristoffersson cleanly moved past on the inside to take the position, from where he went on to take his ninth World RX win from 10 starts in 2018. Solberg finished second and Bakkerud netted another podium.
But, having been side-by-side with Bakkerud on lap four, EKS team owner Ekstrom finished sixth on track, before being promoted to fifth post-race.
That was because Peugeot driver Timmy Hansen and his compatriot Ekstrom had contact late in the race into the hairpin, a move for which Hansen received a five-second penalty.
Hansen had only made it into the final after the fast work of Peugeot’s French mechanics, who had changed the engine in his 208 Supercar between Q3 and Q4 after Hansen had failed to leave the line in Q3.
Hansen passed team-mate Loeb in the opening corner but, due to the incident with Ekstrom, it was the rally legend who finished fourth in Austin.