At round six of the FIA World Rallycross Championship in Höljes, Mattias Ekström made it to another final and he is still leading the World RX drivers’ championship, five points ahead of Petter Solberg.
EKS defended its top spot in the teams’ standings, leading by 32 points over Team Peugeot Hansen. “Although we are still leading both championships, I would call it a bad weekend,” says Ekström.
Technical failures prevented Ekström from a better result.
“We had to fight a lot from the very beginning. In Q1, the e-gas broke and there was no throttle after two laps. We fought back, but when we were halfway through the final, the same problem popped up again. This is quite strange, because we have never ever had problems with this part before. Anyway, congrats to Andreas Bakkerud, who did a good job here and deserves the victory.”
Topi Heikkinen had a decent weekend as well. The flying Finn made it to the semi-final for the fifth time this season and earned some valuable points for the teams’ standings.
“I had ups and downs. It started off very well in Q1 and I celebrated a race win in Q2, but I had bad luck in Q4, when the track was drying after my run. In the semi-final, I didn’t have the pace to make it to the final.”
While the 2016 ‘Magic Weekend’ is history, EKS will immediately prepare its stuff for the first overseas round this year. Round seven of the FIA World Rallycross Championship will take place in Canadian Trois-Rivières, near Montreal, from 05–08 August.
2016 World RX Drivers’ standings (after 6 of 12 rounds)
1. Mattias Ekström (S) 142 Pts.
2. Petter Solberg (N) 137 Pts.
3. Andreas Bakkerud (N) 110 Pts.
4. Sébastien Loeb (F) 106 Pts.
4. Johan Kristoffersson (S) 106 Pts.
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