Day of firsts

New winners across the board in Belgium.

The record book writers will be busy tonight. The Belgian round of the European Rallycross Championship produced the first Russian event winner in Timur Timerzyanov, a first Super1600 and first European victory for Julian Godfrey – also the first British driver to win in the category – and a first TouringCar win for Roman Častoral. And if that’s not enough for you, this was also the first time we had seen two British drivers in the A final (Liam Doran and Andy Scott) since Pembrey in June 1998 (John Cross and Jason Stone).

The last man into the A final was Michaël De Keersmaecker who came all the way from the C, winning that before bagging the B final in a second fine drive. The home town favourite’s run came to an end in the A final where De Keersmaecker brought his hard worked Focus home in last place.

Doran and Timerzyanov were side-by-side in the first corner, the Russian edging ahead with Frode Holte then taking second place as Doran dived into the Joker Lap section. Emerging from the detour behind Scott, Doran then found himself stuck behind his compatriot. “I was badly held up and that cost me the race. I thought he [Scott] would have had more respect and done his Joker Lap and let me get on with it,” said Doran, “I could have led in the first corner – if it was anyone else except Timur there then I would just have leaned on them but we cannot crash into each other,” Doran said of his team mate, the pair having clashed a couple of times in the first half of the season.

An elated Timerzyanov could hardly find the words to express his joy, “I don’t know what happed behind, I just went!” said the Russian who drove most of the last lap with a left rear puncture on his Citroën C4. Holte kept second place, Scott placing fourth ahead of Hunsbedt who lost out in a duel with De Keersmaecker.

The TouringCar final was won and lost in the first half lap. Lars Øivind Enerberg was slow from the start. Častoral led with Derek Tohill level with him in the first corner. Tohill took his Joker Lap early but a spin in the fourth lap cost him any chance of a podium finish as the Joker Lap passes were taken. Enerberg did his Joker in the first lap and Častoral played a blinder by taking his in the third lap and emerging still ahead of Enerberg. Temporary leader Koen Pauwels (the B final winner) dropped to third when he did his Joker Lap and Častoral, cool as a cucumber, then held steady up front and contained Eneberg’s every challenge to take the win.

The Super1600 A final turned into a bit of an anti-climax when pole starter Ulrik Linnemann, Vadim Makarov and B final winner Clemens Meyer ran into each other and plunged into the first corner sand trap. The race continued with Julian Godfrey leading Andreas Bakkerud and Christian Petrakovits, both of whom had been in the Joker section in the first lap. With Bakkerud closing on Godfrey it seemed as the English boffin might be denied victory here for the second year running. But with four laps gone the red flags suddenly came out and the ambulance summonsed to assist Linnemann who had collapsed while at the track side. Initially it looked as though there may be a re-run, but then the decision was taken to declare the result because 75% of the race distance had been covered. Godfrey, was still leading and got the win, a bit of luck here making up for his bad luck a year ago.

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