Shad Griffith wrote:**** off Bob Lomas. So close to making it to the SF but you had to crash with me... got anything to do other than ruining races and being a scrub?
Go back to the land of GT scrubs and never come back, leave it to the big guns.
Pasta_maldonado wrote:I think normal32 is an old English farmer re-incarnated
Pierre Deschenes wrote:Shad Griffith, calling someone else a scrub... is there not a phrase you English-speakers use? Pot calling the kettle black I think it is?
Everything's great.Sebastian Vettel wrote:If I was good at losing I wouldn't be in Formula 1.
Pierre Deschenes wrote:Shad Griffith, calling someone else a scrub... is there not a phrase you English-speakers use? Pot calling the kettle black I think it is?
Massimo Munari wrote:Ehh, zis pot is a looking a bit more purple to me Pierre, don't you think?
Novitopoli wrote:Everytime someone orders at Pizza Hut, an Italian dies.
Novitopoli wrote:Juve's Triplete: Calciopoli, doping & Mafia connections.
Pasta_maldonado wrote:I think normal32 is an old English farmer re-incarnated
Mario on Gutierrez after the Italian Grand Prix wrote:He's no longer just a bit of a tool, he's the entire tool set.
De Telegraaf wrote:Røsbjørgen, at last!
Finally, he screamed when he left his Porsche 959 in pit-road. Ståle Øivind Røsbjørgen has won his first event of the season in GBRC, turning into the 5th different winner in 5 events. The norwegian driver won the A-Final ahead of Markus-Petteri Pykalisto and home hero Franck van Nifterick.
In qualifying, Markus-Petteri Pykalisto was back on top, beeing the 3rd time this season the finnish driver has scored the best time in qualifying. He was 0.285 faster than Adil Rehman, a rookie in the series driving a privateerly prepared MR2, and 0.311 than Pierre Deschenes. van Nifterick was 4th fastest, 0.464 down and Røsbjørgen 5th fastest, 0.669 down. Some disappointments in qualifying happened. Riley Griffith was only 21st fastest, a bad result considering she seemed ready to be in the championship fight, and the Citroen's of Daniel Polák and Hamid Barmak we're only 23rd and 22nd fastest respectivelly, with Barmak beating Polák for the first time this season in qualifying. Fernando Costas failed to qualify after a fairly impressive performance in Finland, with Tamerlan Hasanov failing to qualify for the first time this season as well. Sugomari's DNQ marked the first time a Albatross Racing Toyota didn't make the heats this year, with Julia Schilling again struggling against her team-mate. el-Hawami failed to qualify after his first heat win in Finland, and ex-ARWS driver Eric Swerts was only 37th fastest overall.
In the first of the quarter-final heats, we had a 4 way battle for the win, between Christer Malmström, Franck van Nifterick, Sandra Cessler and Massimo Munari. At the start, van Nifterick took the lead, but Malmström chased after him, beeing always close but van Nifterick defended well to take the heat win ahead of the finn. Munari finished 3rd, after passing Cessler in the 7th lap, when the american driver ran wide coming out of the final corner. Both drivers would have to wait for the remainder heats to see if they could get through as lucky dogs. Riley Griffith finished 5th ahead of Barmak, but the american driver was out of the competition. A disappointing performance by her.
Markus-Petteri Pykalisto won the second heat of the QF. Pykalisto seemed on shape, as despite beeing force to start from 5th, he came through the field to win the heat. Røsbjørgen led early on, but then made a mistake at turn 1 and lost 3 places on the trot, going down to 4th, where he would finish. Christian Poulsen finished 2nd and Hahuri Suzumiya once again scored 3rd in her QF heat.
In heat 3, Mika Litmanen made it 3 out of 3 for Lancia cars so far (plus the qualifying victory), winning ahead of Pierre Deschenes. Litmanen led all the way through, and despite Deschenes pushing to catch him, the french man couldn't do it. Bernardo Gonzalez finished 3rd in the heat, with Katie Lea Winter 4th. Lasse Tilkesson once again couldn't clear the QF, finishing only in 5th place.
In the final heat of the quarter-finals, Hilko Leifeld took the win with a breathtaking pass on Jochen Märko around the outside of the final turn. Märko had passed Leifeld down the inside the previous lap at the hairpin, but the german driver was able to repass him into the final corner to take the heat win. Adil Rehman scored 3rd, and had to wait for the review of the overall times to see if he passed into the SF. Daniel Polák scored 4th, and was, for the first time this season, out in the QF.
The lucky dogs ended up beeing 3rd and 4th place of the first two heats, which we're considerably faster than the final two. That meant Massimo Munari, Sandra Cessler, Hahuri Suzumiya and Ståle Øivind Røsbjørgen we're through into the Semi-Finals.
In the first of the semi-finals, Mika Litmanen was able to take the win after taking the lead in the final lap of the race, ahead of Massimo Munari. The last driver to be qualified for the A-Final was dutch hero Franck van Nifterick, who was showing promising pace. Christer Malmström seemed to have a shoe-in into the A-Final, but then let the car oversteer wide coming out of turn 1 and was forced to take evasive maneuvers not to crash, and went down to 4th place, where he finished. Cessler finished 5th and championship challenger Hilko Leifeld scored 6th.
Pykalisto led all the way through into the second semi-final to take the win, ahead of Ståle Øivind Røsbjørgen, who despite beeing close throughout the heat, couldn't get close enough to the finnish driver to challenge him. Pierre Deschenes scored 3rd and was through into the A-Final as well. Christian Poulsen scored 4th, with Jochen Märko scoring 5th. Suzumiya's engine failed, so she finished 6th.
In the B-Final, Malmström took a calm and relaxed drive to take the win. He started from 2nd place, and cleared Märko fairly quickly, going on to defend from Suzumiya throughout the race, but overall, was never challenged for the win. Suzumiya scored a surprising 2nd place, her best result so far in the series. Championship contender Hilko Leifeld scored 3rd, which depending on how Deschenes did in the A-Final, was a good result to keep him in the fight. Jochen Märko secured 4th place for Trueba, ahead of Poulsen and Cessler, who disapointed quite a lot in this B-Final. A chance wasted for the american talent to score her first win in the series.
But, obviously, the biggest event of the day is always the A-Final. Pykalisto was drawn on pole and seeing his performances at the time, the finnish driver could've been set to take the victory. A great start from Massimo Munari saw the italian take the lead, and what it seemed like Munari would finally be able to take the fight to the best driver, heart-break for the italian driver. The engine on his Lancia Delta S4 failed, and he stopped in the middle of the final corner. This mean Pykalisto, Litmanen and van Nifterick had to break hard, which helped Røsbjørgen, on the outside line through that final corner, took the lead! Deschenes moved into 2nd with that, and Pykalisto dropped to 3rd. van Nifterick and Litmanen lost 10 seconds with this, and during the chase, van Nifterick set what was the fastest lap of the weekend, grabbing the bonus point. Pykalisto chased back Deschenes, who was now on the back of Røsbjørgen. Røsbjørgen defended quite well, and Pykalisto and Deschenes traded places until the french driver made a mistake and dropped back. He fell into the claws of van Nifterick who passed him, and was latter passed by Litmanen, finishing 5th. Disappointing. Up front, Pykalisto pressured Røsbjørgen, but the norwegian driver didn't flinch and took the win, his first win in the series at last. Pykalisto finished 2nd, and van Nifterick send the dutch crowd wild by finishing 3rd. Litmanen finished 4th and Deschenes 5th, with a emotional Munari finishing 6th, questioning what could've been.
This mean that Pykalisto was back in the championship lead! The finn is on 80 points, 6 more than Deschenes and 10 more than Leifeld. Røsbjørgen is 4th, 15 points behind the finn, with Griffith and Malmström beeing 27 points behind Pykalisto.
In the teams championship, Trueba increased the lead to Globex Scorpio Racing, with the italian squad led by Giovanni Roda now having 217 points versus the 179 that Globex have, with USD having 115 points, and sit in 3rd place. ADAC Norbayern are 4th, on 69 points, with KQ Motor Sports 5th with 53 points.
In the constructors championship, Porsche only have 7 points of advantage to Trueba now, 114 versus 117, with Austin sitting in 3rd with 72 points, double the ammount of 4th placed, Citröen. Ferrari are 5th, and Ford 6th.
The next round of the Group B Rallycross Championship is in Czech Republic, in the Autodrom Sosnová, in the weekend of 1-2 September.
Mario on Gutierrez after the Italian Grand Prix wrote:He's no longer just a bit of a tool, he's the entire tool set.
Novitopoli wrote:Everytime someone orders at Pizza Hut, an Italian dies.
Novitopoli wrote:Juve's Triplete: Calciopoli, doping & Mafia connections.
RallyWorld wrote:All-Star and Junior Program to exist in 2019
The GBRC organisation has announced a new package to be introduced in the next season of the series. The All-Star Program, similar to the Infiniti Program run in IPC, and the Junior Program. Both will have cars fielded this season to try out, with the first driver to run for the All-Start program beeing IPC star Jiri Komarek. Rocha confirmed that the Junior Program will start in France, with Christophe Laboury driving the car.
Rocha announced that for the final races this year, the program will run using a Lancia 037, but next year, it might switch. He also said that he still hasn't decided on what the future of GBRC for 2019 is, despite saying that the series will continue.
Mario on Gutierrez after the Italian Grand Prix wrote:He's no longer just a bit of a tool, he's the entire tool set.
Mario on Gutierrez after the Italian Grand Prix wrote:He's no longer just a bit of a tool, he's the entire tool set.
CzechNews wrote:Røsbjørgen..again!
This season of the GBRC had been marked so far by different drivers winning different rounds. But at Sosnova that trend ended, when Røsbjørgen won his second consecutive event.
The norwegian driver has fought back from a poor mid-season showing and has gained tons of momentum, winning at Sosnova the A-Final, never failing to finish outside the top 3, including qualifying.
Qualifying saw, once again, Markus-Petteri Pykalisto beeing the fastest overall, 0.335 faster than his team-mate Mika Litmanen, who was 2nd fastest. Closing the top 3 was Røsbjørgen, 0.433 down. Obviously, the great news of qualifying was Pierre Deschenes, as the frenchman suffered a engine failure during his lap, and was forced to endurace a hard DNQ.
During the first set of heats, in the quarter finals, we saw a surprise, as pole sitter Markus-Petteri Pykalisto was eliminated in heat 1 (the strongest of the 4), when he finished in 3rd place, behind Røsbjørgen and Munari, who had a good weekeend. In heat 2, Riley Griffith was back to race winning form, as she won by less than 0.200 from Christer Malmström. In heat 3, Christian Poulsen dominated the heat, his first of the season. Suzumiya once again got a heat podium, as she finished in 2nd place. In heat 4, Trueba got the 1-2, with Mika Litmanen beating Jochen Märko. The 4 lucky dogs ended up beeing Hiko Leifeld, Daniel Polák, Fernando Costas and Josue Alburqueque.
In the first heat of the semi-finals, Christer Malmström took the win, by fighting off Røsbjørgen, who finished 2nd in the final couple of laps. 3rd place went to Christian Poulsen. In the second heat of the semi-finals, Massimo Munari took victory ahead of Lancia team-mates, Mika Litmanen and Jochen Märko, who finished 2nd and 3rd respectivelly. This meant the A-Final would have the 3 Trueba's still in competition, Røsbjørgen, Poulsen and Malmström, while the B-Final would have Alburqueque, Suzumiya, Griffith, Leifeld, Polák and Costas.
In the B-Final, Hilko Leifeld was able to salvage his weekend, by taking victory after a fantastic fight with Josue Alburqueque, with the 6 cars ending up getting split by 2 seconds only, and all of them with a chance of winning. Leifeld re-took the lead in the final lap from Alburqueque, who finished 2nd. Polák took 3rd place, after leading early on, but dropped time, and had to recover. Suzumiya finished 4th, Costas 5th and Griffith a disappointing 6th place.
In the A-Final, a massive fight went on betweent he Trueba's, the Austin of Malmström and the Porsche of Røsbjørgen. Poulsen just seemed off pace, and couldn't get more than 6th all day long. In the end, Ståle Øivind Røsbjørgen took victory by 0.755 from Massimo Munari, who got close to winning his first event of the season, and 0.914 from Mika Litmanen who finished 3rd. Christer Malmström finished 4th, and during the process, scored the fastest lap of the weekend, and 5th place went to Jochen Märko.
In the championship fight, Ståle Øivind Røsbjørgen is now leading the championship, 11 point ahead of Hilko Leifeld and 14 ahead of Pykalisto. Munari is now in 4th place, 20 points behind Røsbjørgen, with Deschenes falling to 5th place, 22 points behind.
In the teams championship, Trueba increased the lead again, now having 275 points, 65 more than Globex Scorpio Racing, and 139 more than Austin, who have secured 3rd place now, having a 52 point gap to ADAC Nordbayern, who are 26 points ahead of KQ Motor Sports in the fight for best privateer team.
In the manufacturer championship, Lancia have taken the lead in this championship, although only 1 point ahead of Porsche. Austin are 3rd, 54 points behind the italian manufacturer.
Mario on Gutierrez after the Italian Grand Prix wrote:He's no longer just a bit of a tool, he's the entire tool set.
HawkAussie wrote:To the manager of Katie Lea Winter, can I use her for the next two rounds onwards as I will like to replace Simon Bourne from the squad.
Rated wrote:HawkAussie wrote:To the manager of Katie Lea Winter, can I use her for the next two rounds onwards as I will like to replace Simon Bourne from the squad.
She would be happy to accept the offer, but she will only accept it if she gets to drive in a Ford RS200.
Mario on Gutierrez after the Italian Grand Prix wrote:He's no longer just a bit of a tool, he's the entire tool set.
Pasta_maldonado wrote:I think normal32 is an old English farmer re-incarnated
Klon wrote:What did poor André do to you for him to be insulted like that?
Pasta_maldonado wrote:I think normal32 is an old English farmer re-incarnated
Pasta_maldonado wrote:I think normal32 is an old English farmer re-incarnated
L'Équipe.com wrote:Pykalisto wins at France as Rosbjorgen is eliminated early on
The 7th and second last round of the 2018 Group B Rallycross Championship was held at France, in Chateauroux. While initially it was Lessay that was going to host the event, after inspection from the GBRC officials, the track was deemed not to be ready, and the operation was moved into Chateauroux.
Beeing in France, one man wanted to win: Pierre Deschenes. The Porsche driver wanted to get back on terms after a disappointing weekend at Czech Republic, and after beeing 5th fastest in qualifying, he seemed to be there fighting for it.
The pole point went for guest driver Ricardo Llosa. The current FIA PC driver was faster than Massimo Munari by 0.174, with Markus Petteri-Pykalisto beeing 3rd fastest, 0.230. Andrej Kremincky and Pierre Deschenes closed the top 5, with championship leader Røsbjørgen 7th fastest, 0.461 down on Llosa.
French heroes Alexandre-Laurent Voeckler and Jérémy-Étienne Voeckler both qualified for the heats, with no big surprises beeing left out.
Quarter-Finals came along, and the first heat saw Christer Malmström take victory ahead of Markus-Petteri Pykalisto, with pole sitter Ricardo Llosa finishing in 3rd place, and beeing in danger of beeing left out. Second heat saw Mika Litmanen win ahead of Hahuri Suzumiya, with Røsbjørgen retiring! He was out for the weekend, and he now had to believe Pykalisto wouldn't get through into the A-Final. 3rd heat saw Andrej Kremnicky win ahead of Pierre Deschenes, with the final heat having Massimo Munari take victory ahead of Alexandre-Laurent Voeckler. The four lucky dogs were Ricardo Llosa, Ólafur Ragnar Hannesson, Jérémy-Étienne Voeckler and Katie Lea Winter, who would be back into a final after her B-Final win in her debut at Germany.
Semi-finals would dictate who would pass into the A-Final, and for Røsbjørgen's concern, Markus-Petteri Pykalisto took victory in the first heat ahead of Massimo Munari and Ólafur Ragnar Hannesson. Pierre Deschenes only got 4th place, and for his sadness, would not get through into the A-Final. Second semi-final saw Andrej Kremnicky take victory ahead of Mika Litmanen and Ricardo Llosa, and everyone seemed to be ready for a exciting A-Final.
B-Final was up first though. Pierre Deschenes took the lead early on, but saw his chances of winning collapse when he retired at the end of lap 1. This allowed Christer Malmström to take the lead, and despite enormous pressure from JEV, who took the lead, would come over the finish line to win the B-Final at Chateauroux, ahead of local legend Jérémy-Étienne Voeckler and Alexandre-Laurent Voeckler, making two Voeckler's on the podium. Katie Lea Winter finished in 4th place, with Hahuri Suzumiya in 5th place.
But then came the main event: the A-Final. Andrej Kremnicky took the lead early on, and led until half-way through, losing the lead to Markus-Petteri Pykalisto who would go won to win the event by 0.270 from Andrej Kremnicky and half-a-second from Mika Litmanen, with Hannesson in 4th place ahead of Munari and pole-sitter Llosa who finished in 6th place.
With this, Markus-Petteri Pykalisto leads now the title race with only Lydden Hill left on 114 points, 18 more than Røsbjørgen who has 98, with Massimo Munari now up to 3rd in the standings on 91 points, 23 points behind Pykalisto. Malmström is 4th in the standings on 89 points, 25 behind Pykalisto, with Leifeld dropping to 5th on the standings after getting eliminated in the quarter-finals, 30 points behind Pykalisto.
Mario on Gutierrez after the Italian Grand Prix wrote:He's no longer just a bit of a tool, he's the entire tool set.
Giovanni Roda, seeing his team win every title going in GBRC this year wrote:
Novitopoli wrote:Everytime someone orders at Pizza Hut, an Italian dies.
Novitopoli wrote:Juve's Triplete: Calciopoli, doping & Mafia connections.
Autosport wrote:Pykalisto wins race and title!
Markus-Petteri Pykalisto has won the final A-Final of the 2018 Group B Rallycross season, confirming his title in the process. His the first winner of the Group B Rallycross Championship.
The finnish driver completed the Trueba 1-2-3, with team-mate Massimo Munari in 2nd and Mika Litmanen in 3rd, and Bob Lomas in 4th place.
Pykalisto started the weekend in the best way possible, by stealing pole position on Saturday, ahead of Andrej Kremnicky and team-mate Mika Litmanen, with the Porsche's a disappointing 10th and 11th, Malmstrom in 8th and Leifeld in 12th. Leifeld was out in the quarter-finals, with Malmström and Rosbjorgen eventually only reaching the B-Final, with the norwegian having a engine failure during his Semi-Final heat and finishing a lowly 5th in B-Final, behind Outomo Sugomari, who got Toyota's first points of the season. Kremnicky won B-Final ahead of Christer Malmström and Kazuchika Hatanaka.
Pykalisto won the title then on 144 points to Massimo Munari's 116 points, completing the Trueba 1-2, with Rosbjorgen in 3rd on 103 points. Trueba won the team's title, with 439 points, a whooping 209 points ahead of Globex Scorpio Racing with USD in 3rd on 175 points.
Lancia won the manufacurer title on 246 points to Porsche's 153 and Austin's 111 points.
Mario on Gutierrez after the Italian Grand Prix wrote:He's no longer just a bit of a tool, he's the entire tool set.
Nuremberg Zeitung wrote:Leifeld 'delighted' with first season at international level
Hilko Leifeld was but a semi-successful rally driver until he was offered a chance to compete in the GBRC at Munich. His debut was a huge success and this led to a near-full season campaign which saw him finish in 7th place in the championship and as the top independent driver in the series.
However, 2019 could see an even bigger opportunity for him, as he aims to step up into a works car next season. "I've held discussions with several works teams in regards to next season and I think I have a great chance of landing a spot in a top team. I got a little taste of success this year, but next season I'm heading for the buffet!"
The RS200 driver has reportedly been sounded out by Ford, with the American manufacturer hoping to put their abysmal season behind them in 2019. Nissan are also believed to be interested.
