First gives Doran second

Calling home after the A final to give the rest of the family the news, Lindsay Doran, Liam’s mum, said “He’s just won. It was awesome. I didn’t watch, but it was awesome!”

German rounds of the European Rallycross Championship at the Estering have a habit of being edge-of-your-seat stuff and the track’s funnel-like first corner played its part in creating a a set of finals that were brim full of action and incident; the Supercar final being set loose twice, Pavel Koutny crashing over the top of Peter Hedström and not making the restart. Liam Doran had been fastest in timed practice but the races never quite came to the Englishman and the battle for second place in the championship looked to going towards his French rival, Davy Jeanney who started the A final from pole.

In the restart, Doran made a superb start, went between the Jeanney and Hedström and led into the first corner. Jeanney was close all the way but only a clear track in the last lap after Dora ducked into the Joker Lap. Pushing hard to try and get a gap, Jeanney hit the bank on top of the hill and Doran repassed for the lead before the Frenchman got to the Joker. Doran greeted the win with a mixture of relief and elation, “I needed that, we worked so hard for a win this year and this was really the last chance,” said the Englishman who snatched second place in the championship with the victory.

Super1600 also found squeezing eight cars into the first corner a tall order and the race started three times before Teemu Suninen was able to go the distance and take his first win ahead of Andreas Bakkerud and Sergey Zagumennov.

Joni Wiman was black flagged out of the final, Jussi-Petteri Leppihalme went out with damage and Stanislav Susta somehow survived a big crash to make it back for his best finish to date.

The TouringCar final was reduced to six cars after Lars Øivind Enerberg and Anton Marklund went off in the first corner. That left Robin Larsson with a fairly easy run to the flag ahead of Ole Håbjørg and Roman Castoral.

Kevin Hansen won the JRX final by a mile from Magda Andersson while Marat Knavez did not finish.

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