Johan Kristoffersson wins the Logitech G World RX of Catalunya amongst drama.
Kristoffersson recovered from poor qualifying results to win round eight of the 2020 FIA World Rallycross Championship.
Turn one of the race saw a big incident which took pole sitter Andreas Bakkerud and Robin Larsson out of the race. Kristoffersson squeezed Bakkerud into the wall on the inside which whipped Bakkerud’s car round into the path of Larsson. Larsson, with nowhere to go, crashed straight into Bakkerud’s door stopping him instantly. Both drivers are reported to be ok.
Kristoffersson went on to lead the race ahead of Timmy Hansen.
Kristoffersson had been stuck in traffic throughout the qualifying rounds, and in the semi-final and final his true pace was shown.
The two-time champion took his joker on lap three and was quickly on the back of Mattias Ekstrom. Ekstrom, the Top Qualifier from qualifying, had been running third but not on the same pace as the front two.
Ekstrom made a mistake and went very wide in the hairpin at the end of the lap, allowing Kristoffersson past.
Kristoffersson closed the gap back to Hansen quickly and retook the lead after Hansen jokered on the final lap.
With Ekstrom’s mistake Anton Marklund took third positon and the final place on the podium. Ekstrom rejoined the race and finished fourth.
The turn one incident was under investigation after the race and the stewards called for no further action to be taken.
Despite a podium yesterday, Kevin Hansen’s lap one joker didn’t pay off. He got stuck behind Tamas Karai which slowed his progress on catching the front runners and means he missed out on the final from the first semi-final. Also dropping out from the race was Timo Scheider and Karai.
Niclas Gronholm was the first to miss out on the final from semi-final two along with teammate Timur Timerzyanov and Enzo Ide.
Kristofferssson leads the drivers’ championship by 27 points from Ekstrom with Timmy Hansen a further 29 points behind. KYB Team JC lead the teams championship from Team Hansen by 16 points.
World RX returns on 21-22 November for the World RX of Benelux for the penultimate round of the 2020 championship.
Feature image credit: FIAWorldRallycross.com
