World RX Canada: Kristoffersson leads Solberg heading into semis

Kristoffersson's team-mate Petter Solberg was fastest in Q3 on Sunday morning having made the best start to lead his race, as Kristoffersson ran second after a side-by-side first corner battle with Mattias Ekstrom.

In Q4, it was Kristoffersson's turn to make the superior start of the pair and lead the final qualifying race of the weekend to the chequered flag, his time beating that of the previous best set by Timmy Hansen in an earlier encounter.

Hansen's third fastest time, beaten only by Kristoffersson and Ekstrom, lifted the Swede into the semi-finals, in ninth, despite losing time with a front-right puncture in Q3.

He joins Kristoffersson in a quest to remain the only drivers to have qualified for the final at every event so far in 2017.

Solberg ended up second in the intermediate classification, dropping another point in the championship standings to his stable-mate, but he will start on pole in the second semi-final.

Both races will have a Polo and an Audi S1 on the front row, Ekstrom qualifying third with his EKS team mate Toomas Heikkinen fourth, the Finn having set the fastest time in Q1 on Saturday.

Ken Block maintained an impressive Canadian performance in Q3 to remain sixth overall, but had contact with the rear of Heikkinen's Audi at the entry to Turn 1 and spun in his final heat.

With damage sustained to his Ford's steering, Block completed the race but set the slowest time of those that finished and dropped to eighth in the intermediate standings.

The biggest scalp of the qualifying stages was Block's team mate, Andreas Bakkerud, who finished second in his Q3 and Q4 races, but that was not enough to make up for the losses he sustained following problems in Q2 on Saturday afternoon.

Niclas Gronholm also failed to make it through, the Finn hampered by engine problems on day two of the event which began in morning warm-up.

Triple European Champion Timur Timerzyanov produced a solid performance in his STARD-run Ford Fiesta in Q4 by taking an early joker and winning his race to qualify for the semi-finals in 10th, three places down on team-mate Janis Baumanis in the overall standings.

Tune in to Motorsport TV at 1900 UK time to watch the climax of this weekend's World RX action from Canada