ES GETS BIG WORLD RX FINE
Top-flight team pinged for another no-show at the Canadian round of world contest
World Rallycross team ES Motorsport has been fined £45,900 by the FIA for failing to compete in the Canadian round of the series last weekend.
The new-for-2019 outfit was given a suspended penalty when it failed to run its Skoda Fabia Supercar in the British round at Silverstone in May, after splitting with driver Rokas Baciuska before the Belgian round and using former WRC driver Francois Duval as a replacement for his home event at Spa.
Since missing Silverstone, the squad has run test driver Kevin Abbring in the Norwegian and Swedish rounds, where the Dutchman twice finished fourth.
When the Lithuanian squad failed to show in Canada, the FIA stewards at Trois-rivieres issued the fine for the seventh round (Canada) and each event missed for the remaining three rounds of the campaign.
“A permanent individual competitor has a responsibility vis-a-vis the FIA to ensure that the car entered takes to the grid for each competition of the championship,” was the reason issued by the stewards.
A team statement issued before the decision read: “We believe that we have shown great potential as a private team in its FIA World Rallycross Championship debut season and what we can achieve with our Skoda WRX Supercar accompanied by a capable driver behind the wheel.
“We are motivated after the results in Norway and Sweden with our driver Kevin Abbring. We have learned and established a lot of points we can improve upon. Due to a scheduling conflict Kevin was not able to attend the Canada event. As agreed from the start, he would be able only to manage Norway, Sweden and South Africa. From now, our team will take a pause from the races. We will continue our car testing and development.”