KRISTOFFERSSON LEADS THE WAY IN NEW ERA FOR ALL-ELECTRIC WORLD RALLYCROSS
Swedish title winner says the future is fully charged for mixed-surface discipline
The World Rallycross Championship heralded the start of a brand-new era with the opening round of the 2022 season in Norway, as the series staged its first-ever all-electric round.
Plans for the electric transition at the discipline’s top-flight were first revealed by MN in August 2017 and, following a turbulent route of various concepts and unforeseen delays, has finally reached fruition. Eight cars started the curtain-raiser using single specification 500kW powertrain kits.
Four-time World RX champion Johan Kristoffersson claimed victory at the Hell circuit.
The Swede said: “It was a very positive first weekend for World RX’s electric era. It’s been a huge challenge for everybody to get to this point, and all the teams have done an incredible job simply to be here.
“With everything being so new, there’s obviously still a lot of work to do, but it was impressive to see how well the cars ran with so little prior testing and we are learning more about them all the time.”
The undulating nature of the Lankebanan circuit in Hell,
Norway is a favourite among
World Rallycross Championship drivers. Its up-and-down layout not only returned to the World RX schedule for the first time since
2019 last weekend but could be also used as a metaphor for the series’ effort to switch to all-electric.
But fittingly, it was in Scandinavia, a stronghold for the series, where the discipline’s top-flight finally executed its transition last weekend. While the margins were close on track, it was poetic too that the most successful driver in World RX history, Johan Kristoffersson, stood on the top step of the podium after the two-day competition.
It was fellow World RX champion Timmy Hansen who stopped the clocks first in the first-ever official timed session for the new four-wheeldrive, 500kW all-electric cars in free practice on Saturday morning. Each of the teams with the exception of Munnich Motorsport had first run the freshly built machines at pace in a preseason test just a week earlier in Sweden.
But, it was four-time champion Kristoffersson who set the pace in the new-for-2022 single-lap Super
Pole session that determined the grid for heat one.
The Swede then drove to victory in the first ever multi-car race for the new machines, powered by a singlespecification Kreisel-developed twin-motor powertrain. Hansen won the other heat one race but was just 0.3 shy of Kristoffersson’s time. Hansen was driving the family squad’s Peugeot 208 from the 2021 campaign, now fitted with Kreisel’s electric kit.
Kristoffersson, piloting Kristoffersson Motorsport’s all-new Volkswagen
Polo, based on the German marque’s R5 (Rally2) chassis then had to play second fiddle to Hansen in heat two, before KMS bolted on new tyres to Kristoffersson’s car in heat three to drive to the fastest time, and the top position in the ranking order.
Hansen’s team-mate and brother Kevin Hansen was third best through each of the heats and he finished second to Kristoffersson in the pair’s progression session race, both surviving door-todoor contact in the run down to Turn 1.
Finn Niclas Gronholm, driving a PWR-branded machine for the new Construction Equipment Dealer Team squad, was collateral damage in the incident. His steering rack was broken by the first corner contact and it put him out.
With the car repaired for the semifinals, Gronholm’s team, led by the experienced Jussi Pinomaki, made a bold strategy call. It put Gronholm on the fifth slot of the grid on new tyres.
The move worked, Gronholm stormed off the line from the outside in the fourcar semi-final to move into the lead at the opening corner and drive to victory, while Timmy Hansen seemingly wrestled his 208 to second place.
His younger brother and team-mate was forced to retire from the race following broken suspension in Turn 1.
Disaster has also struck Kristoffersson in the first semi but to a lesser extent: his Polo didn’t make it away from the startline with the rest of the grid when the lights went green. He was gifted a position when Rene Munnich’s Seat Ibiza stopped on the second tour, then overhauled team-mate Gustav Bergstrom (the young Swede making his World RX debut) but Kristoffersson could do nothing about the other
KMS driver, Ole Christian Veiby. Veiby drove to the semi-final win and claimed first choice of grid positions for the final. He, of course, chose the inside pole position slot.
The top two from each semi-final moved into the final, while the thirdplace finisher with the best ranking placing also progressed to the main event.
Having overcome a challenging opening day in her new World RX career, summarised by broken suspension in heat two, Klara Andersson had stunned regulars with her pace on day two, and joined the final grid.
In the main event, Hansen made the best initial launch, having saved two new front tyres for his Peugeot
208. He made a great start but, having launched from fourth on the grid, he was forced to try an outside move at the opening right-hand corner.
With the joker lap, which runs around the outside of the first turn at the Hell circuit, now not allowed to be used on the opening lap of races, the pack went four-wide in Turn 1 and as Veiby and Gronholm also ran deep into the corner, Kristoffersson was able to dive through the open door on the inside to storm into the lead in the run to Turn 2.
The Swede was never headed, but battle raged behind between Hansen, who had climbed to second, and Veiby, the latter following the Peugeot driver into the joker lap mid-race, hampering his chances of moving up the order.
Andersson saved her compulsory extra route until late in the race, having moved to second on track, and almost returned to the main route in third. Jokering a lap earlier may have resulted in a different outcome, but she would ultimately finish fourth, a strong result ahead of team-mate Gronholm, while Veiby (literally) pushed Hansen to the finish to claim a career-first World RX podium.