Second Riga podium for Timmy Hansen maintains title lead
FIA World Rallycross Championship points leader Timmy Hansen added another trophy to his 2021 collection with third place in the second round in as many days at Latvian capital Riga.
Timmy had a tough time in qualifying, starting from the outside grid slots in all three sessions which compromised his ability to go flat out. Fastest lap in Q2 and a brilliant run from fourth on the grid in Q3 to go second-fastest showed signs of what he was capable of in the second day of action at Biķernieki.
While Timmy lost ground at the start of his semi-final, a smart strategy gave Timmy room to put in two rapid laps at the end of his race to nick second place off Timo Scheider at the last corner of the race, banking a row two start for the final.
He pulled the same trick again in the final against Scheider’s team-mate Mattias Ekström, falling behind at the start to fourth but hounding him for the final podium spot immediately after. Ekström took his joker on lap four, giving Timmy another opportunity to put the hammer down and make up the time needed to seal third place at the final corner.
Kevin’s route to the final was a little tougher. Like Timmy, he also found himself starting on the outside line often and it cost him dearly in Q1, as contact from Juha Rytkönen at turn one sent him into a spin that left him ninth.
After qualifying, Kevin found himself in battles with GRX-SET’s Krisztián Szabó more than once. Kevin had been pushed wide exiting turn two but found himself back in third place almost immediately, as Szabó’s car swung back around off-line and dropped back.
Sixth on the final grid had become fifth when Timo Scheider’s car broke on pre-grid, which had allowed Szabó to line up alongside in sixth. Szabó got his elbows out at the start once more but Kevin would get his fifth place back, taking a lap one joker and putting in quick enough laps to stay ahead of the GRX-SET car after it had peeled in for its joker lap.
Timmy’s gap over Kevin at the head of the World RX drivers’ standings has now increased to 17 points, while the pair’s results were enough to ensure Hansen World RX Team’s lead over GRX-SET in the teams’ championship remained at 48 points.
“It’s been a long weekend, a lot of racing and it’s been difficult for us with our pace lacking that edge you need. I’m happy with three podiums for the team in these two rounds; it’s a good result considering where we were.
“High grip tracks like this one have been difficult for us this season but for the rest of the championship there’s more gravel and that should suit our 2021 car better. That said we did have some good pace today; there were some sessions where we had the pace but we’d started from the outside and that held us up a little bit. There were flashes of pace but we needed it to be more consistent.
“I’m looking forward to the next three events and fighting at the very top, challenging for wins again. That’s what I’m here for – I’m not satisfied to finish on the podium and not be fighting for first place.”
“This race weekend has been really tough for us. We struggled to find ultimate pace and we realised quite quickly that the overall car philosophy we chose for this season doesn’t suit this circuit. But we also learned a lot as to why that is, which will be very helpful for the future.
“I was maybe a little bit unlucky in Q1 with the contact turning me towards the wall but other than that we did what was possible with the pace we had. Our damage limitation efforts were reasonably good, especially as we are still in a really strong position with the teams’ standings. I’m looking forward to going to some tracks that suit myself and the car a bit more. There’s still four rounds to go and I plan to make up for this weekend later in the season!”
“I don’t think we achieved the maximum we could have done this weekend as we had some very fast lap times. But that’s the difficulty of rallycross, it depends on more than just ultimate lap time. If we’d started on the inside in our races it could have been a different story. We weren’t far off and we definitely had podium-worthy pace. But we’d have needed things to go our way to get a win today and that didn’t happen.
“We don’t believe in luck with this championship and we’ve done well in other ways compared to our rivals, even if our pace was not perfect this weekend. Sometimes we have technical problems but you never see them – we have a very robust and comprehensive system in place to find these issues and fix them before reaching the grid.”
“The cars go through a lot of stress with general use, with hard landings from jumps and so forth. Things break sometimes. But our crew are extremely aware, have a great eye for troubleshooting and have great experience. So in that way, I don’t believe that we’re lucky – we are doing a good job and reaping the benefits of our team’s diligence.”
Kevin’s route to the final was a little tougher. Like Timmy, he also found himself starting on the outside line often and it cost him dearly in Q1, as contact from Juha Rytkönen at turn one sent him into a spin that left him ninth.
After qualifying, Kevin found himself in battles with GRX-SET’s Krisztián Szabó more than once. Kevin had been pushed wide exiting turn two but found himself back in third place almost immediately, as Szabó’s car swung back around off-line and dropped back.
Sixth on the final grid had become fifth when Timo Scheider’s car broke on pre-grid, which had allowed Szabó to line up alongside in sixth. Szabó got his elbows out at the start once more but Kevin would get his fifth place back, taking a lap one joker and putting in quick enough laps to stay ahead of the GRX-SET car after it had peeled in for its joker lap.
Timmy’s gap over Kevin at the head of the World RX drivers’ standings has now increased to 17 points, while the pair’s results were enough to ensure Hansen World RX Team’s lead over GRX-SET in the teams’ championship remained at 48 points.
Timmy Hansen, #21 Peugeot 208 WRX
“It’s been a long weekend, a lot of racing and it’s been difficult for us with our pace lacking that edge you need. I’m happy with three podiums for the team in these two rounds; it’s a good result considering where we were.
“High grip tracks like this one have been difficult for us this season but for the rest of the championship there’s more gravel and that should suit our 2021 car better. That said we did have some good pace today; there were some sessions where we had the pace but we’d started from the outside and that held us up a little bit. There were flashes of pace but we needed it to be more consistent.
“I’m looking forward to the next three events and fighting at the very top, challenging for wins again. That’s what I’m here for – I’m not satisfied to finish on the podium and not be fighting for first place.”
Kevin Hansen, #9 Peugeot 208 WRX
“This race weekend has been really tough for us. We struggled to find ultimate pace and we realised quite quickly that the overall car philosophy we chose for this season doesn’t suit this circuit. But we also learned a lot as to why that is, which will be very helpful for the future.
“I was maybe a little bit unlucky in Q1 with the contact turning me towards the wall but other than that we did what was possible with the pace we had. Our damage limitation efforts were reasonably good, especially as we are still in a really strong position with the teams’ standings. I’m looking forward to going to some tracks that suit myself and the car a bit more. There’s still four rounds to go and I plan to make up for this weekend later in the season!”
Kenneth Hansen, Team Principal
“I don’t think we achieved the maximum we could have done this weekend as we had some very fast lap times. But that’s the difficulty of rallycross, it depends on more than just ultimate lap time. If we’d started on the inside in our races it could have been a different story. We weren’t far off and we definitely had podium-worthy pace. But we’d have needed things to go our way to get a win today and that didn’t happen.
“We don’t believe in luck with this championship and we’ve done well in other ways compared to our rivals, even if our pace was not perfect this weekend. Sometimes we have technical problems but you never see them – we have a very robust and comprehensive system in place to find these issues and fix them before reaching the grid.”
“The cars go through a lot of stress with general use, with hard landings from jumps and so forth. Things break sometimes. But our crew are extremely aware, have a great eye for troubleshooting and have great experience. So in that way, I don’t believe that we’re lucky – we are doing a good job and reaping the benefits of our team’s diligence.” 
