This past weekend the Hockenheimring track hosted just two World Series — the starting stage of the season-2016 the most popular racing touring car championship Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, and the second stage of the rally-cross World RX World Cup. Apart from the fact that the two races were held on the same circuit, and they had one more element in common — his name was Mattias Ekström.
Swede delivers a complete program in both series — in the DTM, he is the team Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline and rides on Audi A5 DTM, and in rallycross piloting all-wheel drive Audi S1 EKS RX Quattro as a part of your own team.
The double burden — in the course of the weekend Mattias had a total of four travel training, six qualifications, two semi-finals and the three races — did not prevent Ekström to win a landslide victory in the World RX phase and equal on points with the leader of a series of Petter Solberg.
Throughout the stage literally dominated the Swedish rally motocross track. First, he won the first qualification, then became the third in the second, and the third took second place behind Petter Solberg and only in the last became the sixth — but that did not prevent him to lead the table of results and win the pole position of the first semi-final.
The second position on the basis of qualifying rounds took Johan Kristofferson — thanks to this he got the first starting position of the second semi-final. Ekström teammate for EKS RX Thomas Heykkonen confirmed the high tempo of the team, finishing third. High result marked the fourth major league debutant — last year's winner monoprivodnom standings Super 1600 Janis Baumanis.
Davie Joan at last year's Peugeot 208 was able to get ahead of Petter Solberg and Sebastien Loeb. By the way, in one of the qualifying races Norwegian and a Frenchman collided, resulting in Petter broke the front right suspension. However, Solberg admitted Seb did everything right, and he does not have any claims to it.
Closed the top 12 riders took place in the semi-finals, Kevin Eriksson, Robin Larsson, Liam Doran, Andreas Bakkerud and Ken Block.
The real tragedy began sporting events that took place in qualifying with Timmy Hansen. In the first two qualifying sessions the young Swede finished second and came in third place in the championship stage. But in the third qualifying his Peugeot 208 suddenly caught fire, Timmy had to slow down and go towards the fire calculations. Hansen left the car without problems, rescue workers quickly extinguished it, and the case took mechanics.
On any good results in the third session, it was possible to forget — on its results Timmy took 17th place. But there was the final qualification and the Swede won her... to immediately be disqualified by the judges for underweight car. Zealous mechanics managed to repair within seriously ease the car — Peugeot was easier permitted by as much as 18 kg! «Bagel» for the fourth qualifying session Hansen deprived of any chance of getting into the cherished 12 semifinalists — season for the Peugeot-Hansen develops rider so far is not very good...
Another failure of the German stage was Russian Timur Timerzyanov. Tragically for the Russian fans Kazanets not passed in the semifinals, finishing only 17th place in the qualification.
However, the problem of those who have not managed to break through the sieve qualifications quickly forgotten thanks to the traditionally rich bitter struggle semifinals.
The first semi-final race was held under the banner of the struggle vnutrikomandnoy just four of the six participants. In the first row of the grid were two Audi EKS RX Team Mattias Ekström and Topi Heykkonena. The second row was occupied by livestock Kenneth Hansen — Davie Joan of junior team Peugeot-Hansen Academy and Sebastien Loeb of the core team Team Peugeot-Hansen. The French were on the Peugeot 208 vehicles of different specifications — Step on the previous year, and Seb on the latest machine. It was only on the third row were Robin Larsson and Andreas Bakkerud, representing different teams.
From the start of the two Audi and Peugeot and two pairs of left — Heykkonen ahead of Ekström and Loeb drove Jeanne. On the first lap the Swede and the last of that quartet Frenchman drove to the «joker-lap», followed by Audi were in the same order, but the two Peugeot reversed. Bakkerud and Larsson remained in the shadow of the fifth and sixth positions. And then Sébastien Loeb went on the attack...
First Seb quite easily walked to Jeanne, and immediately rushed to celebrate attacking Ekström. But Matthias — old bird, and just was not going to give up. As a result, the car Loeb found himself without a front bumper outside of the track. The Frenchman was able to go back, but skip ahead and Bakkeruda closely after letting Larsson.
After the «joker-circle» Bakkerud managed to beat more and Jeanne, and Larsson suddenly inflated rate, and again walked both the Peugeot and after his «joker» has left behind and Andreas who cut the drive. As a result, Heykkonen, Ekström Larsson and finished in the first three positions, Bakkerud came down and both pilots Peugeot remained outside the final.
In the second semi-final from the start — or rather from the very first turn — started the chain of events, turned the race into a real thriller. Johan Kristofferson arrived at the first corner leader, but under braking Petter Solberg «caught» his Volkswagen, causing the bumper and rear wing were jammed and pressed against the rear left wheel.
Swede kept the lead and continued to fight until the middle of arrival when the tire still could not stand the load and broke. And here is the rest of the pack like a shark attacked ohromevshy car Kristofferson. Johan stayed in the lead two laps more (!) — His Volkswagen at every turn puts side, and on the back left of the living space of contact with machines from other members. But at the beginning of the final round of its first walked Liam Doran, then Petter Solberg and Ken Block. In this order they finished — the finals were the first three, and the unfortunate Kristofferson stayed behind.
The second semi-final:
At the start of the final race EKS RX Team riders played everything like clockwork. Topi Heykkonen slipped into the first corner, Mattias Ekström Otter Liam Doran and the other riders because of this were all out of work. Then, the Finn began to break away, the Swede covered his rear.
And in the second round in the same place just two riders — Petter Solberg and Robin Larsson — made mistakes that cost them good results.
In one Norwegian issued turns out, he hit a bump, then stood up on two wheels, but managed to keep the car and continued to fight — even behind the three leaders who had gone ahead — Heykkonena, Ekström and the Bloc.
Behind Petter is in the same turn on the wrong path walked Robin Larsson. His Audi was «baptized» More on corner entry, and then threw the same bump as Solberg, but his shot led to a revolution through the roof. The Swede also continued to move, but lost time is not allowing him to fight for getting into the top three winners.
As a result, Heykkonen, Ekström and unit were on their own and there was only one question — in what order they will finish. And here the role played by the unusual feature of the track at Hockenheim — «joker-circle» here is no more distance and peculiar route truncation, when leaving the car which is gaining more and more speed than the cars of participants, who are traveling on the main road.
This and took advantage of Mattias Ekström, ahead of his teammate and went to victory. Heykkonen not become hard to counter his colleague and finished second, while Ken Block satisfied with the third position. Petter Solberg finished in fourth place, Liam Doran — the fifth and the sixth Robin Larsson.
The final:
Thanks to the victory Ekström caught up on points with Solberg — they are now on 48 points. Do not got to the final Sebastien Loeb after two stages there is a sixth of the 22 participants — not bad for a newcomer series.
The next stage of the world championship on rally-cross will be held in Belgium on 13 May.
Photo and video: www.fiaworldrallycross.com
