Splash down

Overnight rain and more to come today.

Heavy rain during the night and seemingly unshakeable forecasts of more to come means that the Autodrop seventh round of the European Rallycross Championship is set to be the first fully wet event of the year.

While the rain has left roads and farmland surrounding the Eurocircuit at Valkenswaard heavily puddled and, in some places, flooded, the infrastructure at the circuit itself appears to have dealt with the downpour very well – but then this is a country where they know a thing or two about drainage. The gravel sections of the track are wet, but the only place there is any significant standing water is in the new Joker Lap. Among those out walking track already this morning is Mats Lysen. “It is very slippery and the grip level is low, but it’s not too bad, you have to be careful. Yesterday was the same, I tried to be smooth, perhaps my laps were not the very fastest but I had four equal laps. My goal was top five, so second is very good,” he said.

Often it’s the paddock that suffers worst in these conditions but in the main paddock only the unsurfaced roadway is flooded; all the surfaced roads are drained and clear. Even out in the grass ‘paddock two’ things are reasonably firm under foot and generally the conditions are much better than have been experienced at other races where it has rained this much.

The action starts today with the warm-up at 0900, the second heat scheduled for 1030.

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