Leppihalme’s Supercar chance

Juss-Petteri Leppihalme has entered the first round of the 2013 FIA European Rallycross Championship in a Ford Focus Supercar run by Belgian team Pauwels Motorsport. Leppihalme (20) has worked hard all winter to graduate to Supercar and hopes to extend his deal with Pauwels to cover the whole year. A European championship event winner in Super1600, Leppihalme will drive the ex-Andy Scott Ford Focus in the European season opener at Lydden Hill over Easter weekend and is due to get a test run in the car before that. “It has been harder than ever to get money to race this year but now I have this deal for Lydden. If everything works out well, then I hope at least to drive the first four RallycrossRX events in the FIA European Rallycross Championship, and hopefully the whole year,” said Leppihalme who is set to be the only Finnish Supercar driver in the RallycrossRX field at Lydden.

The addition of Leppihalme means that Pauwels Motorsport will run two cars at Lydden, the Focus, and a Fiesta TouringCar for team boss Koen Pauwels. “We had planned to go testing for two days in France next week but the weather is so bad that we have cancelled that and we will test a little later with Leppihalme,” said Pauwels who races the ex-Scott Focus himself in Belgian championship events.

Leppihalme has established himself as a consistent front runner in a year-and-a-half spent racing in Super1600 with Set Promotion. Taking a podium place in his first event in Norway in the summer of 2011, Leppihalme placed third in the 2012 championship with two event wins to his credit.

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