Belgium World Rallycross: VW's Kristoffersson leads Solberg
Johan Kristoffersson topped the World Rallycross Championship's classification after the heats at Mettet in Belgium, overcoming an overnight advantage for Petter Solberg and Mattias Ekstrom
The round-one winner set the fastest time in both of Sunday's heat races to sit on top spot and claim 16 points for doing so.
Solberg had been joint top with Ekstrom after day one, and the 2014 champion set the fastest time of the weekend in the penultimate heat four race, only to be bettered by four tenths over the four laps by Kristoffersson in the final race.
"Today has been fantastic," said Kristoffersson. "It's all credit to the team, they have done an incredible job on the car all weekend.
"We've done a lot more changes than we usually do but we've just got faster and faster.
"We've been brave enough to do the changes and I feel really confident in the team. To beat Petter was just brilliant."
Kristoffersson will start on pole position for semi-final one, while Solberg will take the same position in the second.
Ekstrom will join Solberg on the front row, having survived an elbows-out first corner in heat three that did for Britain's Liam Doran, who has had nothing but bad luck of late and hasn't made the cut for the semis.
Marklund Motorsport driver PG Andersson will start on row two in semi-final one with Timmy Hansen, who was fastest in heat two on Saturday in mixed weather conditions.
Both Ford Olsberg MSE drivers, Andreas Bakkerud and Reinis Nitiss have made the semis, while Anton Marklund will join team mate Ekstrom in the knock-out races as he fights back from a torrid part of opening races of the season.
Austrian racer Manfred Stohl survived a close call with a wall in heat two and has also made the top 12.
Other casualties ahead of the semi-finals include 2014 European Rallycross Champion Robin Larsson and Timur Timerzyanov, who was spun by Hungarian racer Tamas Karai in heat one and dropped it all on his own in heat three.
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments