Johan Kristoffersson extended his FIA World Rallycross Championship by taking his third win of the 2018 season at the inaugural Speedmachine Festival at Silverstone.
Silverstone was host to the World RX of Great Britain, the fourth round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship where Kristoffersson took his third win in the PSRX Volkswagen Sweden Polo of the season to extend his championship lead despite ending up in the tyre wall in the semi-final.
The semi-final was restarted and Kristoffersson went on to take pole position for the final. In the final Mattias Ekstrӧm came away with the Supercharge award for the quickest reaction to the lights but it was Kristoffersson who led into turn one with Ekstrӧm’s EKS Audi Sport teammate Andreas Bakkerud following him in second.
Bakkerud appeared to have quicker pace compared to earlier in the day and was all over the back of Kristoffersson but was unable to find a way past so it came down to the timings of their joker laps. Bakkerud went on the penultimate lap whilst Kristoffersson on the last but it was not enough for Bakkerud to take the win with Kristoffersson still coming back out in front.
Round three winner Sébastien Loeb took the Team Peugeot Total to another podium despite a terrible start where he dropped to the back of the grid. Taking the outside line of turn one he was able to reclaim a few of these positions to take him back up to third.
Despite Ekstrӧm’s start it wasn’t enough to get him on the podium for the first time in the 2018 season and he picked up more solid points for the team.
Niclas Grӧnholm made it to another final where he finished fifth, whilst Kevin Hansen suffered a failure on the last lap which dropped him back to sixth.
Missing out on the finals were overnight points leader and Q1 winner Petter Solberg after an accident in the semi-final with his teammate Kristoffersson saw him retire with damage, whilst Q2 winner, Timmy Hansen, also suffered problems in his semi-final which saw him drop out. Tommy Rustad just missed out on the final in his first appearance of the season, with regulars Kevin Eriksson, Jérôme Grosset-Janin and Timur Timerzyanov also missing out.
There were three British entries for the home round, however, fortune was not on their side with Mark Higgins, Andrew Jordan and Oliver Bennett finishing 16th, 20th and 21st respectively.
Going into round 5 at Norway Kristoffersson has extended his championship lead to 14 points ahead of Loeb with Bakkerud sits third. In the team championship, PSRX Volkswagen Sweden are sitting at the top with EKS Audi Sport and Team Peugeot Total leading the chasing pack separated by a point.
