Seven days in rallycross, June 5

The third round of the French Rallycross Championship was the main action last weekend. After a brace of wins for Supercar newboy JB Dubourg, pre-season favourite Fabien Pailler struck back at Chateauroux to take his first win of the year. Fastest in all four heats, Pailleer dominated the event and escaped problems in the final where a crash eliminated Dubourg, “Knapick” and Christophe Jouet. The restarted race was a formality and, in a good event for Pailler Competition, Fabien was chased home by little brother Jonathan. Alain Heu completed the top three, Fabien Chanoine fourth in only his third Supercar event. Andrea Dubourg (Clio) topped the Super1600 order for the second time this year, beating series leader Cyril Raymond (Twingo) and Laurent Chartrain (C2). Christope Saunois (Toyota) took the Division Three win while Steven Lefrancois was best of the Division Four field and Enzo Libner won the Twingo Cup final. Luci Grosset-Janin won the Ladies cup for the second time.

The Norwegian rallycross Championship completed its second round at Konsmo where there was a home win for local driver Hans-Jorgen Ostreng who used his BMW M3 to beat the class favourites. Herbjorn Haug (Mercedes) placed second ahead of Ola Froshaug (Volvo S40). Roy Vidar Skomedal took the two-litre ‘TouringCar’ class with his Escort, Tom Daniel Tanevik placing second in his Mazda RX8. The Super1600 class presented Trond Marthinsen (Saxo) with yet another win, Espen Isaksaetre second in his similar car.

On the back of his win in the second round of the Swedish championship, and having now eligible for an international licence having turned 16, Kevin Hansen has been confirmed as an entry for the third round of the RX Lites Cup that will accompany the FIA World Rallycross Championship in Finland.

Elsewhere, rallycross stars are heading to Texas for this weekend’s X Games event where a rallycross track has been constructed at the Circuit of the Americas. After a taxing start to the year, Liam Doran is in bullish mood: “I’ve had a difficult start to the season in the World Rallycross championship, so I’m looking forward to trying to break the run of bad luck with a good result in Texas. I’m looking at it in terms that I’ve been quick at X Games previously, and with the next round of the World Championship in Norway, which is a race I won in 2013, things are looking up,”said Doran. VW team Marklund Motorsport is also sending cars and drivers to X Games, which comes in a busy season for the Swedish squad. ” The challenge in America is not just about winning medals, it’s also about getting the Marklund Motorsport team’s Polo RX Supercars to Texas and back to the north of Norway in time for round three of the World Rallycross Championship on June 14/15. “We flew our cars from Amsterdam on May 27, the same day we had our third car in Belgium for a media event to announce François Duval in our team for World RX of Belgium in July,” explained team principal Jan Marklund. “That car will then be in Sweden for two days of testing on Friday and Saturday then on Monday morning [June 2] we fly out to Austin. We don’t get the cars back to Amsterdam until Wednesday June 11 and we need to get them re-prepared and to the north of Norway by the Friday in time for the race at Hell. We have the possibility to use two other cars if there’s a problem but we would rather keep Topi and Anton in their own cars. It’s going to be a busy few weeks.”
And as the dust settles on the second round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship at Lydden, here are two great videos, the first with Robert Reed, who created rallycross, the second a look at the Wildcards who starred at Lydden.

[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rfEs5r0fbk&list=UUFD78OTzB27H5HD4cjMp2JQ[/tube]

[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr-rNY8ALSE[/tube]

[portfolio_slideshow]