It could or should have been the day of Petter Solberg, but while leading the all decisive Final by almost 4 seconds the car of “Hollywood” broke after a jump and the Kouvola victory fell prey to Tanner Foust.
Day 2 at Kouvola started with a press release of Andy Scott’s Albatec Racing Team: “Albatec Racing will take no further part in round four of the FIA European Rallycross Championship in Kouvola, after discovering a potentially destructive problem in the engine of Andy Scott’s Peugeot 208. After securing two fourth places in yesterday’s opening heats, the fledgling team studied data last night and after discussion with its engine partner Oreca, agreed that to continue running this weekend could result in a terminal problem. The team therefore regrettably withdraws from this weekend to concentrate on continuing its development of the Albatec Peugeot 208 ahead of the next round in Norway.”
Qualification
With 8.30h Central European Summer Time (CEST) Heat 3 was scheduled pretty early, seen that most of the European countries are one hour behind Finnish time. First winner of the day in SuperCars was reigning European champion Timur Timerzyanov who marked the fastest time ahead of Citroën make-colleague Andreas Bakkerud and Ford campaigner Tanner Foust. Fourth fastest was Liam Doran who fought a remarkable battle with Foust till the finish line. Previous to that the Briton had a short clinch with Petter Solberg, after which the Norwegian faced a flat front tyre. “Hollywood” was trying to limp all the way towards chequers, but after three laps and without playing his Joker found himself back as non-finisher in the time-keepers’ list. With fifth place here Alexander Hvaal scored his best qualification result of the weekend.
Alex Hvaal later on his Facebook: “Bad luck follows me around together with some driver mistakes. It started when they were pulling out grid positions, I got fifth line in the first heat and got behind a local Finnish driver, got stuck there, same in second heat! Third heat I was in grid 5 again, but had a good start and managed to take it from the outside and fifth overall time. I was ready for a battle in Heat 4, but when we were ready so was the rain and the moment the rain started the last heat was ruined! I got last spot into the semi-final, but it’s hard to take it when I’m starting so far behind, and I had to push 110% and when I went into the Joker Lap I was a bit to hard into the corner, so I ended up with a flat tyre.” That was that for Kouvola, 12th place overall with just 7 new EC points to his score.
VW Polo driver Anton Marklund scored his worst result in Heat 3, after jumping the start the Swede was send into a second Joker Lap, resulting in the 17th fastest time here. For Brian Deegan it was the other way round, 8th place was the best weekend result for the American. In Heat 4 the OMSE team member proved his skills again, but as this race was run in the starting rain the 11th time of the Ford Fiesta driver was not good enough to turn the tables. ‘Metal Mulisha General’ Deegan eventually just missed the semi-finals by finishing 13th overall of the Intermediate Classification.
Timmy Hansen used his dry fourth heat to set the fastest time of the weekend, the Swede was 2 seconds quicker than all other drivers at the Tykkimäen Moottorirata. His record run elevated the Citroën DS3 driver to the top of the Intermediate Classification. Second fastest here was Petter Solberg, the third fastest time was claimed by Anton Marklund. While Deegan’s Race 4 was hampered by some rain, Race 5 was run on a very wet track. Here it was Andreas Bakkerud who was stealing the show, but after an amazing drive in pouring rain the Norwegian found himself back in a poor 17th place on the time-keepers’ list.
Semi-Finals
The first Semi-Final saw Timmy Hansen starting from the pole position and Tanner Foust plowing through the gravel traps of the first corner. Frenchman Davy Jeanney crashed early into the barriers, his retirement resulted in sixth place here. Anton Marklund lost a ticket for the Final while doing his Joker Lap. The race ended with “TT” in first place, Timmy Hansen as second and Tanner Foust as third.
Global RallyCross Championship regular Toomas Heikkinen started the second Semi-Final from pole, but eventually missed the graduation to the Final due to a flat tyre. Liam Doran was leading the race for almost all the way to the finish, but when the Briton came out of the Joker Lap detour it was Petter Solberg who passed him to claim the win, with just one car length ahead. Andreas Bakkerud was third and thereby qualified for the last place on the starting grid of the Final.
Finals
Petter Solberg won the chase to the first corner of the last race of the weekend, just to then run free from all the havoc behind. Over the following three laps the Norwegian was able to built up a safe lead of almost 4 seconds and saw victory already bagged. However, after a bad jump landing a steering arm of his DS3 SuperCar called it a day to leave “Hollywood” without control over his steering. Solberg tried hard to push the car further by the sheer power of its almost 600bhp strong engine, but soon stranded helpless in the Joker Lap section. All to the full advantage of Tanner Foust who drove his Ford Fiesta Mk7 to his second 2013 European round win. Timur Timerzyanov became his runner-up, Timmy Hansen claimed third place. While Liam Doran finished in fourth position his teammate Andreas Bakkerud had to give up early with a puncture.
In Super1600s Latvian Reinis Nitišs claimed a start-to-finish victory, ahead of Russian Ildar Rakhmatullin and Swede Eric Färén. While Russian Timur Shigaboutdinov finished in fourth place Dane Ulrik Linnemann faced a flat tyre and limped home to fifth place.
When two people quarrel, a third rejoices, is the résumé of the TouringCars Final. Irishman Derek Tohill and Swede Robin Larsson had an argument here, resulting in the fact that both crashed into the barriers and Czech Roman Častoral took over the lead to pick the Finnish laurels. While Larsson had to retire at the spot Tohill was able to proceed to become the runner-up, Swede Daniel Lundh finished in third place.
The JRX Cup class was once again won by William Nilsson, a former Karting driver and newbie to Rallycross. “This is almost unreal. The second victory already this year. Magda [Andersson] and Kevin [Hansen] were clearly faster on Saturday, but we changed a little on the car and I also changed my driving a little bit, and immediately I was fastest on the track. I had won all starts, but nearly missed it in the Final and had to fight hard to be first in the first corner. For the rest of the Final all was going smooth and it was wonderful to be first over the finish line once again,” said 13 years old William Nilsson, beaming all over his face.
More pictures to be found in our Gallery here.
Official SuperCars final results here.
Official Super1600s final results here.
Official TouringCars final results here.
Day 2 video highlights.
