Petter Solberg has won round
9 of World Rallycross Championship in Germany in a photo finish victory with a
gap of 5 thousandths of a second pipping Mattias Ekstrom’s Audi S1 Supercar,
the closest finish in the 47 year history of the sport. Robin Larsson stood on
the final spot on the podium.
The Monster Energy
Super Charge Award was awarded to Robin Larsonn who got a rapid start off the
line. However, a mistake by Larsson on lap three gave Solberg the opportunity
to take the lead. Taking the joker lap on his final lap, Solberg finished just
a hair width ahead of two-time DTM Champion Ekstrom who had to settle with the
runner-up spot. Solberg’s victory now extends his World RX Championship lead to
52 points with just three rounds remaining.
Topi Heikkinen the
Volkswagen Marklund Motorsports driver is now second in the overall driver
standings after finishing fifth in the final. Heikkinen’s move up the standings
knocked Ford Olsbergs MSE driver Reinis Nitiss back into third after the
18-year-old Latvian suffered a turbo failure during heat three.
Team Peugeot-Hansen was
unable to continue the team’s string of podium successes as only Timmy Hansen
progressed to the final. The 21-year-old Swede was running fourth for the
majority of the race but after taking the joker on the final lap, Hansen
dropped back to finish the event sixth overall.
In the penultimate
round of the Super1600 FIA European Rallycross Championship category, Latvia’s
Janis Baumanis took his third category victory of the season despite an ongoing
issue with his Renault Twingo’s gearbox. Lithuania’s Ernestas Staponkus and
Denmark’s Ulrik Linnemann finished second and third respectively. Sergej
Zagumennov finished fourth and remains at the top of the S1600 standings.
Camilla Antonsen
entered the record books as she became the first female to win a round of the
FIA European Rallycross TouringCar category. Torleif Lona came behind her in
second place and Anders Braten took the final podium spot. Daniel Lundh
remains the TouringCar series leader, 14 points ahead of Lona with just one
round remaining.
Round 10 of the FIA
World Rallycross Championship will take place at the all-new RX track of
Franciacorta in Brescia, Italy next week on September 27-28, 2014.
Picture
of Petter Solberg