All good runs come to an end. After finishing first or second at every round of the 2015 FIA World Rallycross Championship, Petter Solberg left the podium to his rivals in Sweden today.
In front of a packed crowd of over 39,000 spectators at Höljes, the two-time FIA world champion maintained his record of qualifying for every single final in the series’ history. It wasn’t to be this time for Petter, but he still thrilled thousands of Swedes in his second-home race. The PSRX team packed up the party, cleared up the cans and made the short journey home to Torsby to prepare for a winning return in Canada.
Solberg said: “Both good news and not so good news from Höljes. Good news is that we extended the lead in the FIA World RX Championship by 9 points to our closest rival Johan Kristoffersson. We are now in the lead by 44 points and we are very happy with that.
The main difference regarding the points score we have done this season compared to 2014 is that we have a much more steady score in the intermediate standings. So far this season we have four top spots and only given away two points in that category.
“Unfortunately we started the race on Saturday with some technical problems after setting a new lap record in the free practice. I couldn’t get the starts right and had to make the best I could out of bad situations. Still I managed to save a fourth place after two heats.
“On Sunday we had sorted out the problems, and I managed to win both heats and grab 16 World Championship points. In the final the clutch was broken and I couldn’t get the start right. So I chose to follow Mattias Ekström into the joker lap. The two of us started to chase the three cars in front and closed the gap pretty well. But in the fifth lap I cut one corner too hard and broke the steering arm. It was my own mistake and a calculated risk to try to reach the podium in a very difficult situation. I was not able to finish the race.
“I’m not happy with the result, but I’m more than happy to extend the championship lead. Next up is Canada where I won in 2014. I can’t wait to go there to defend both the World RX Championship lead and last year’s win.”
Final result:
1 Timmy Hansen 4m27.812s
2 Mattias Ekström 4m28.114s
3 Andreas Bakkerud 4m29.931s
4 Toomas Heikkinen 4m32.507s
5 Reinis Nitiss 4m38.087s
6 Petter Solberg DNF
Drivers’ championship positions:
1 Petter Solberg 159pts
2 Johan Kristoffersson 115pts
3 Andreas Bakkerud 113pts
4 Timmy Hansen 105pts
5 Reinis Nitiss 96pts
6 Davy Jeanney 88pts
Teams’ championship positions:
1 Ford Olsbergs MSE 209pts
2 Peugeot-Hansen 193pts
3 SDRX 182pts
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