O’DONOVAN NEARS THE TITLE AS THE UK STAND-OUT IN FRANCE
As the British Rallycross Championship held a round in France for the first time in its history, Patrick O’Donovan claimed another maximum points haul to take a significant step closer to the 2022 crown.
An eight-car 5 Nations BRX Supercar contingent joined a packed French entry to make up a 34-car field for the finale of France’s domestic series, knowing that even making the semi-finals against the local drivers in well-proven packages on the specialist high-grip French circuit would be a tall order.
But, not only did O’Donovan qualify 14th overall, despite a puncture in Q2 and a gearbox issue in Q4, he finished top of the British RX drivers to claim the UK points spoils and was the only British Championship contender to make the semifinals, That was, in part, due to a fifth-best overall time in the Q3 night race, held late on
Saturday evening.
In the knockout stages, O’Donovan avoided a secondcorner melee to climb from the back row of the grid and, with a perfect joker-lap strategy and fast pace, made it through to the final.
In the main event, he delivered another solid run to finish fifth, driving Team RX Racing’s Ford Fiesta, which significantly older in technology than the cars of the runners at the front of the French order.
Samuel Peu won the final to underline the defence of his French RX crown. Second of the British Championship runners was reigning champion Derek Tohill, the Irishman missing almost all of Free Practice due to an issue passing technical scrutineering that also befell other drivers.
He battled back to be best of the British contingent in two of the four heats and claim second place points, 19th overall in the event. Tohill would have likely joined O’Donovan in the semi-finals but for a disqualification from heat three for joker-merge incident.
Another of the 5 Nations BRX title-contenders, Tristan
Ovenden, finished just behind Tohill in the overall order, third of the UK drivers, while Steve Hill beat Ollie O’Donovan in a close battle during their heat four race, but it was O’Donovan who bettered Hill in the event overall to be fourth.
Dominic Flitney sixth in his return to the series and Mike Sellar seventh. But, for sixtime British RX Champion Julian Godfrey, his weekend ended before it had even begun as his car also failed technical scrutineering and his team was unable to rectify the issue at the event.
The result means that 18-year-old O’Donovan holds a 41-point lead heading into the final double-header of the season at Lydden
Hill next month. Results
Rallycross France/5 Nations BRX Organiser: Rallycross France When: October 15-16 Where: Dreux, France Starters: 116
1 Samuel Peu (Peugeot 208) 4m16.493s; 2 Julien Febreau (Peugeot 208) +0.277s; 3 Romuald Delaunay (Citroen DS3) +2.639s; 4 Damien Meunier (Volkswagen Polo) +2.930s; 5 Patrick O’Donovan (Ford Fiesta) +3.709s; 6 David Meslier (Citroen DS3).