Procter recovers as Lysen burns

With an enormous team effort, and the help of the ever resourceful Julian Godfrey, Kevin Procter managed to take the start for the first heat in this weekend’s Hungarian ERC round, posting ninth fastest time to battle his way back into the event. “It was quite exciting because I didn’t really know where I was going or what the track was like, it was a bit like doing a rally but I;m glad to get a finish and a time; I’m back in the event,” said Procter, “It was a huge team effort by everyone, we broke two oil pumps this morning but Julian [Godfrey] managed to make one good one out the two and the lads cleaned out the oil lines and the tank and everything and now it seems okay.”

After this morning’s problems, Procter is back in the race. © Henk de Winter/RallycrossWorld.com

While Procter’s weekend looked up, Mats Lysen’s season appeared to have hit the skids when he caused a race stoppage after having to park his Renault Clio with an engine bay fire. Initially fearing an engine failure, a cost that the cash strapped Norwegian can ill afford, he feared his season might be at an end. “I think, I hope, that it was an oil leak on to the turbo,” said Lysen. “We’ve looked at the engine data and seems okay so we need to clean everything and check it out but at the moment I think we can race again tomorrow. I don’t know what I did wrong this winter but it must have been quite bad! If it’s just an oil leak on the turbo, it would feel like good luck.”

Lysen’s failure caused a re-run of the race, which spelled disaster for Davy Jeanney who led the first race handsomely but whose Citroën C4 suffered a driveline failure at restart leaving the Frenchman to limp into retirement while Michael De Keersmaecker beat Alexander Hvaal.

Tanner Foust led his race, easing rivals wide in the first turn, but ultimately lost out to Timur Timeryanov who took the win and fastest time ahead of De Keersmaecker, Hvaal, Foust and Liam Doran who stuggled to fifth despite a split turbo hose robbing his DS3 of boost.

Ulrik Linneman set the pace among the 28-strong Super1600 field, Andreas Bakkerud second from the inspired Eric Faren while Roman Castoral survived a first corner rubbing match that ended Robin Larsson’s race to set fastest time, the Czech using knowledge of a track he knows well to shade Derek Tohill.

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