Team Hansen is gearing up for rounds five and six of the FIA World Rallycross Championship this weekend in Latvia’s capital city, Riga, as it pushes to defend its 2019 championship titles.
While reigning World RX champion Timmy Hansen and Kevin Hansen are fourth and fifth in the championship heading to Latvia, their combined efforts have put Team Hansen only 19 points off the pace in the teams’ championship with more than half the 2020 season to go.
Latvia will mark the half-way point of this year’s World RX season, as it hosts the third double-header event of the year. Rounds five and six of the championship take place this Saturday and Sunday respectively, with a total of 10 rounds currently scheduled.
During the three-week gap since the previous round at Kouvola in Finland, Team Hansen has been hard at work on making refinements to its pair of 208 WRX Supercars, conducting a three-day test at Lidköpings Motorstadion with its two drivers.
Team Hansen has scored two podium finishes so far in 2020, Kevin picking up a second place in Sweden and Timmy scoring third place in the first Finland round. With a return to a track expected to suit the team’s 208 better than the opening four rounds, the team is hoping for a first win of the year.
Quotes
“The start to this season has been a little bit difficult at times but overall it’s still been a positive beginning. We did a three-day test near the workshop to evaluate the areas we’d been struggling with so far this year, as well as developing some new things. Hopefully that’ll pay off this weekend.
“We’ve definitely done everything we can to take a step forward for now and although this season is tricky, with there not being much time between the races, the test went well, so I’m excited to see what happens this weekend.
“I won here last year which was a key point in taking the world championship, so I’m excited to be coming back to Riga and see how we fare. With this being another double-header round, we need to be sharp and on the pace from the beginning, as there’s no time to make any significant changes between the rounds.”
“Riga is a very nice track. It has suited us very well in the past; it’s more of a high-grip circuit like Loheac, Abu Dhabi and Barcelona, which is the type of circuit we’re best at. Johan has won here twice in the past of course but I feel that we’ve got a good car for this track and it should suit us more compared to the tracks we’ve raced on so far this year.
“We’ve been testing recently to make improvements in specific areas and we feel like we’re arriving in Riga with fewer question marks, which should hopefully bring us a little bit more performance from the first race of the weekend. It looks like it’ll be a dry, warm weekend, and it’s great to have fans safely back at the track for this event.
“Riga feels a bit like a street circuit; its corners are tight and twisty, with some fast stretches in between, but more than anything you need to watch out for the walls and barriers everywhere. There are plenty of run-off areas in Höljes and Kouvola but here, it’s a bit like we’re competing at the Monaco of rallycross.”
“Riga is a bit more like circuit racing compared to what we had in the first two rounds. It’s a challenging track because of how different it is, with it being the longest lap of the season and also the hard jump early in the lap, which requires a delicate set-up balance between softness to cope with the landing but stiffness for grip elsewhere in the lap.
“It’s too early to say before we hit the track on Saturday how much of a difference our testing has made. We learned quite a few things but ultimately the only way to find out what difference we’ve made is once we’re racing against everyone else during the weekend. We’ll cross our fingers, keep on pushing and go for it!”
