Fairytale in Sweden for Lomas and BITW
There are fairytales in motorsport. This weekend, in the third round of the Group B Rallycross Championship, we had one of those fairytales. Bob Lomas became the first privateer to win a racing weekend in GBRC, driving the BITW entered Audi Sport Quattro. The british driver put on a fantastic display in the A-Final, after starting from 3rd, and stealing the lead in the final lap from Christer Malmström, who finished 2nd. This round had the particularity that the podium overall was made of 3 debutants in the series.
In qualifying, for the second round in a row, we had a Lancia 1-2, with Pykalisto ahead of Munari once again, with Deschenes beeing the fastest of the rest. Another Porsche vs Lancia festival seemed to be in store, with Malmström in the middle. Rosbjorgen disappointed a bit in his lap, only beeing 7th fastest, starting what would be a disastrous weekend for the norwegian Porsche factory driver. The best privateer in qualifying was Hilko Leifeild, who was 10th fastest. The other championship conteder in Bernardo Gonzalez was 11th fastest. Eventual A-Final winner Bob Lomas was only 12th fastest in qualifying (also beeing the first driver to win the overall GBRC event without beeing one of the top 10 fastest drivers in qualifying), with home town hero Lasse Tilkesson beeing 13th fastest in his own Opel Manta. Kelly Harris qualified a Mazda for the second time this year only, beeing 16th fastest, while Pijanowski in his guest Skoda was 20th fastest. Julia Schilling was the 24th fastest, and was the final qualifier.
Mark Kirby once again disappointed, beeing only 28th fastest, while Luca Pacchiarini was the biggest disappointment in qualifying, ending up only 27th fastest, and with a DNQ beside his name. Both Aeroracing Audi's failed to qualify as well, while Saheeh el-Hawami, after reaching the A-Final in Germany, failing to qualify for the first time this year. This qualifying also proved another milestone, as Shad Griffith became the first driver to DNQ by mechanical failure. Eventually, the pack was spread by 9 seconds overall.
For the quarter-finals draw, heat 1 and heat 4 were visably stronger than the other two. In heat 1, Sandra Cessler took her first heat win in GBRC, finishing ahead of Christian Poulsen, who overtook Gonzalez in the final corner to take 2nd place from the mexican driver, and putting the Kiwi Racing Ford for the first time into the semi-finals. Gonzalez ended up 3rd, while Pykalisto finished 4th, and found out that his overall time wasn't enough for him to clear into the semi-finals. A disappointing result for him, since he set the fastest lap of the weekend in this heat, earning him another point. Most of that can be to the fact that Pykalisto spended the heat trying to clear Hasanov, who was defending like a madman, until his engine expired.
In heat 2, we saw Massimo Munari get back to heat wins for the first time since Mid-Ohio, finishing ahead of Hilko Leifeld. Munari seemed back to good performances for the first time this year, a relief for the Trueba boys.
In heat 3, Mika Litmanen took the win ahead of Bob Lomas, and both cars went to the semi-finals without a problem.
In heat 4, we saw a terrific heat with another big disappointment. Draw on pole, Rosbjorgen made mistakes all throughout the heat, and eventually ended the heat stopped on the side of the track with a misfiring engine, culminating in a disastrous showing for the norwegian driver. Deschenes took the heat win, and increased his championship lead, while Malmström took 2nd place.
The 4 wildcard drivers for the next round were Bernardo Gonzalez, Fernando Costas, Daniel Polák and Ólafur Ragnar Hannesson.
Semi-finals were next, and the draws were fairly levelled. A big mess in heat 1 saw Hannesson take his first heat in GBRC, after Cessler and Leifeld had a come together while fighting for P3 on lap 3, which delayed them both and Poulsen. The top 3 pulled away, but a series of fastest laps from Sandra Cessler saw her catch the front three, and with a dive on the final lap, took 3rd away from Bernardo Gonzalez, and getting that final place in the A-Final in heat 1. Munari finished 2nd in between Cessler and Hannesson.
For heat 2, the show was prepared. Deschenes took 3 laps to clear Costas for P4, and by that time had lost ground for 3rd place man, Bob Lomas. Malmström got overtaken by Litmanen, and eventually defending from Bob Lomas lost the rear, and eventually had come together with Deschenes while fighting for P3, which dropped the frenchman behind him, while the finn grabbed the final spot in the A-Final. Deschenes was visably disappointed, putting the blame on Christer for the incident.
The B-Final was first before the main event came. Hilko Leifeld took the lead in lap 1 and never let it go, taking his first win in a final. The big disappointment was for Christian Poulsen though. The danish driver got to P2 and was catching very fast Leifeld, before an engine failure ended his race, which delayed the rest of the pack, including Deschenes who ran into the back of the stricken Ford midway through the final corner. The frenchman lost time, but eventually recovered to 4th place, increasing his championship lead in the process. The only driver who won points from the champioship contenders was Bernardo Gonzalez, who was able to catch Leifeld in the final lap, but couldn't make the pass, settling down for P2, while Daniel Polák took 3rd place in the Leclerc Citroen. Deschenes took 4th, Costas 5th while Poulsen was 6th overall.
But now came the main show, and boy, the fans weren't disappointed with the race. Bob Lomas took the early lead, but eventually lost it to Christer Malmström who would lead into the final lap of the race. Lomas dropped into P4, but a mistake from Munari made him go into P2. Now he only had Cessler and Malmstrom ahead. Coming into the final two laps, he pressured Cessler and the american made a mistake down the hill, and lost the car, falling behind Lomas. Next lap, Cessler had a fight with the Trueba cars, and came out worse, when she got touched by Hanneson and spinned, falling into 6th place, where she would finish. Meanwhile, Lomas chased after Christer, and into the hairpin for the final time, went down the inside, and took the lead of the race, and he was able to pull away a good enough gap to win on his GBRC debut for BITW. Malmström finished 2nd, while Hannesson took 3rd. 4th place went to Mika Litmanen, while Munari finished 5th and Sandra Cessler 6th.
With this results, Pierre Deschenes now has a 10 point lead on Pykalisto, and a 12 point lead on Gonzalez. Rosbjorgen is 4th in the championship, 19 points behind, while Leifeld is 5th, 21 points behind the frenchman. In the teams championship, Trueba closed on Globex Scorpio, with the gap now beeing only 15 points, 131 to 116, while USD are third on 60 points. Ferrari are 4th on 46 points, while ADAC Nordbayern are 5th on 34 points. Porsche lead the manufacturer champioship, 77 points to Lancia's 57, while Ferrari is 3rd on 35 points and Austin is 4thon 32 points, with Citroen closing the top 5 on 18 points.
The next round of the Group B Rallycross Championship will be in Finland, in the town of Tykkimäki, in the weekend of 28-29 July.
Qualifying Results1 PYKALISTO Markus-Petteri 0:40.631
2 MUNARI Massimo +0.172
3 DESCHENES Pierre +0.184
4 LITMANEN Mika +0.385
5 MALMSTRÖM Christer +0.399
6 POULSEN Christian +0.466
7 RØSBJØRGEN Ståle Øivind +0.675
8 RAGNAR HANNESSON Ólafur +1.090
9 CESSLER Sandra +1.125
10 LEIFELD Hilko +1.515
11 GONZALEZ Bernardo +2.010
12 LOMAS Bob +2.603
13 TILKESSON Lasse +2.731
14 POLÁK Daniel +2.990
15 LEA Winter Katie +2.918
16 HARRIS Kelly +3.090
17 COSTAS Fernando +3.662
18 HASANOV Tamerlan +3.827
19 BARMAK Hamid +4.256
20 PAUL Henry +4.393
21 PIJANOWSKI Kamil +4.682
22 SUGOMARI Outomo +4.871
23 GRÜNEWALD Florian +5.044
24 SCHILLING Julia +5.067
25 WESTERNBERG Thomas +5.315
26 BENEŠ Andrej +5.320
27 PACCHIARINI Luca +5.677
28 KIRBY Mark +5.762
29 NICOLAU Helios +6.063
30 POOLE Pedro +6.121
31 NAKAMURA Miyo +6.142
32 EL-HAWAMI Saheeh +6.266
33 DENGIILEI Hatohobei +6.327
34 JORDANOVIC Gordan +6.429
35 GRAYSON-DRAKE Jason +6.444
36 DESCHENES Jean-Francois +6.918
37 EDWARDS Barry +7.063
38 BOSEVIC Anton +7.142
39 KATAYAMA Shinji +7.149
40 MARCELLI Antonio +7.168
41 JUN-SEO Shoi +7.187
42 KATAYAMA Kenji +7.682
43 BOURNE Simon +7.958
44 JOVANOVIC Nicola +8.183
45 CONNOLLY Jack +8.394
46 VLAHOVIC Jozo +9.019
47 GRIFFITH Shad No Time
Quarter-Finals:Heat 1Heat 2Heat 3Heat 4Semi-Finals:Heat 1Heat 2Finals:B-FinalA-FinalChampionship Standings_____________________________________________________________________________
Entries for the Finninish round of GBRC are now open. Manufacturers can enter guest drivers and privateers can be entered. This process will last until the 4th of December, at 00:00 BST.