MOTORSPORT: VW, Audi tops in another world

The Volkswagen Group stablemate brands which quit the world rally and sports car endurance championships at the end of last year - as part of damage-limitation from the dieselgate saga - continue to succeed in motorsport through teams they back in the World Rallycross Championship.

Peter Solberg’s Volkswagen-affiliated World RX team has just won its first championship round with the new Polo GTI ‘Supercar’ at Mettet in Belgium. Swede Johan Kristoffersson was the victorious driver with Norwegian team boss Solberg third.

In the race for the title, Kristoffersson is now just three points behind fellow Swede Mattias Ekstrom. Coincidentally Ekstrom, the defending World RX champion, is again driving for Audi, the most successful brand this century at the annual Le Mans 24-Hour sports car classic.

Volkswagen dominated the WRC for four years until its withdrawal from rallying at the end of last season.

Solberg, the 2003 WRC champion with Subaru, won the first two World RX titles – in 2014 and ’15 – as a Citroen privateer before hooking-up this year with Volkswagen.

Swede Timmy Hansen was on course to win the final in Belgium until a last lap front-left puncture on his Peugeot 208 allowed Kristoffersson to take the win by just 0.009s.

“I was so close to a win … [but] the Volkswagens have been so fast this weekend,” Hansen said.

Kristoffersson and Solberg have been in the final at all four rounds this season.
Audi man Ekstrom was fourth in Belgium after his hat-trick of wins in the first three rounds and has 101 points to Kristoffersson’s 98, Solberg’s 87 and Hansen’s 82.
France’s nine-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb missed the Belgian World RX final after a 360-degree spin in the semi-finals but is fifth on 62 points.

American Ken Block is ninth in a Ford Focus, while his fellow Blue Oval representative and teammate, Norwegian Andreas Bakkerud, is sixth, 10 points behind Loeb. Bakkerud rammed a tyre wall in Belgium following contact from countryman Solberg at the entry to the jump in the circuit.

Volkswagen leads Audi 185-141 in the team’s championship, with Hansen’s Peugeot outfit on 134 and Block’s Hoonigan Racing Division fourth on 91.

America’s Global Rallycross Championship has been won the past two years by Scott Speed in a Volkswagen Beetle, and he and Andretti Autosports teammate Tanner Foust lead the series again this season after just one round.

The next of the 12 World RX rounds is on May 26 in Britain – at Lydden Hill, where rallycross began – and the championship heads to South Africa for the first time later this year with the final round slated for November.
Glenney winner first time out in RXAus
Steve Glenney was an instant success on his entry into Australia’s low-profile new rallycross championship, RXAus, at Marulan in NSW.

Glenney, the Targa Tasmania winner in 2008 and for several years a semi-regular Australian Rally Championship competitor, won the second round of RXAus ahead of series founder Will Orders – both of them in Mitusbishi Lancer Evos.

Third was youngster Aaron Windus in a Volkswagen Polo.

Justin Dowel, an ARC champion, was unable to start the final after problems with his Hyundai.

The third of the scheduled five rounds will be at Queensland’s Carnell Raceway at Stanthorpe on June 10.
Rough day for Aussies in Blancpain
Computer gamer turned professional racer Matt Simmons had a “pretty tricky” hour-long stint in the weekend’s second round of the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup at Britain’s Silverstone circuit.

Queenslander Simmons, a former Australia Post courier who graduated through Nissan’s GT Academy, took his turn in a GT-R NISMO GT3 after a safety car period.

“The field was mixed up with a lot of pros and amateurs and it took a while to get past them,” Simmons explained.

The Aussie strapped into the GT-R NISMO when it was placed a lowly 36th after pitting a lap too late and losing considerable time in pit-lane.

“There was a big accident, a virtual safety car, it turned into a full safety car, and we pitted at the wrong time,” Simmons said.

Having started 14th, the GT-R – which Simmons shared with British pair Matt Parry and Struan Moore – ended the three-hour race in 24th, the last car on the lead lap.

Another Aussie, Jonathan Venter, co-drove an Audi which was classified 31st.

The event was won by a Lamborghini Huracan GT3 from a Mercedes-AMG GT3.

Blancpain GT contenders hit the track next on June 22-23 at the Paul Ricard Circuit in France.

Swiss driver Sebastien Buemi - the reigning Formula E champion with the Renault e.dams team and a Toyota sports car endurance racer - won in Monaco to rack-up his 10th FE victory and fourth this season.

The Formula E championship is a two-horse race between Buemi, on 104 points, and Brazilian Lucas Di Grassi, on 89. Buemi’s teammate, Frenchman Nicolas Prost - son of the great Alain - sits third on 48 points.

In the team’s title, Renault e.dams leads with 152 points from ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport (Di Grassi’s team) on 115, with Mahindra Racing – for whom Nick Heidfeld was third in Monaco – a distant third on 60 points.

Maro Engel, a one-time Supercar driver in Australia, was fifth in the field of 20 cars at Monaco driving for the Monaco-based Venturi team, and New Zealander Mitch Evans came home ninth for the Jaguar Racing operation run by Williams Advanced Engineering – an offshoot of the Williams F1 team.

Three Fords were involved in the tangle – Joey Logano’s Penske entry broke a brake rotor, sending him and Danica Patrick into the wall entering turn one. Almirola cannoned into Logano, while Patrick’s car was engulfed in flames.

NASCAR officials red-flagged the race for almost half an hour as safety workers cut the roof and roll cage off the RPM car to remove Almirola, who was flown to hospital.

While he has a compressed T5 vertebra, Almirola has been allowed to return home to North Carolina.

The Kansas race was won by Toyota driver Martin Truex Junior from Penske Team driver Brad Keselowski.

Chevrolet driver Kyle Larson leads the championship on 475 points to Truex’s 431 and Keselowski’s 408. Logano is ninth, Almirola – who is in his sixth season with Petty’s team and has only Cup race victory to his credit – is 23rd and Patrick 33rd.