World Rallycross Championship R1 2018 – Barcelona
 

This was very late coming together, but I was able to pop across to Barcelona for the opening round of the World Rallycross Championship.

I think a few of you follow this Championship and, given that many picture were taken, here are a few of my faves:

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Mattias Ekstrom took an early lead after winning the opening qualifying race…

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…but this is the view that most of the field got in the subsequent qualifiers: the new rear wing fitted to the Polo of Petter Solberg!

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As with last year conditions were very mixed, with relentless rain on Saturday and blazing sunshine on the Sunday.

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Although the weather wasn’t always that pleasant for spectating, it was great for the racing as we got a day of watching the drivers fight with the cars in the wet, then a day of seeing them absolutely flat out in the dry.

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As the first round of the Championship there were a load of new cars to look at, but there was one I was especially keen to see up close as it has been put together by every Subaru owners favourite, Prodrive.

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The Megane looked very stiff on track but, despite my doubts about the drivers, both cars made it to the semi-finals.

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Anton Marklund won the European Championship with a pretty dominant drive last season and he started off in a similar fashion at Barcelona.

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Reinis Nitiss has a new car (the ex-Niclas Gronholm M-Sport Fiesta) for 2018 and, after a slightly shaky start, he became the driver to beat in the European Championship races.

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After winning three of the four qualifiers, Nitiss won his semi-final and took a comfortable win in the final, leaving Marklund having to settle with second. I hope Reinis can maintain his form in subsequent European rounds, as I think he deserves some success.

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Timmy Hansen seemed to find a lot of speed in the dry and he looked a serious challenger for the win in the latter stages of Sunday. Unfortunately his car died during the semi-final and he ended up retiring. Damn shame, but I hope it’s a sign that the Peugeot Sport 208 will be competitive this year.

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With Timmy out of the picture it looked like the overall victory would be contested by Solberg and Ekstrom, however contact on turn one resulted in Petter being shunted into a stack of tyres. Johan Kristoffersson chased Ekstrom, but couldn’t find a was past and so had to settle for second…

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…however, although Ekstrom crossed the line first, he was subsequently disqualified and the win was awarded to Kristoffersson. A rather controversial way to start the Championship, but I didn’t think it was a fair move so am glad to see the officials intervene.

Round 2 is this weekend: so it’s going to be interesting to see if Solberg and Ekstrom come to blows there!

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Great set of pics.

What a great set of photos , wonder if they use the 2 bucket method when washing their cars :-D

Awesome stuff mate. Barcelona eh! :D

Cheers! :)

:lol: I don't envy whoever was cleaning the cars down on the Saturday: I think there was clay content in the loose surface as it seemed to be sticking to everything!

Funny thing is, it's a shorter journey than most rallycross circuits in the UK! I only live 10 minutes from Gatwick, it's a 90ish minute flight and the track is just outside of Barcelona. It takes over five hours to get to Blyton or Croft! :lol:

Of anyone can get it the latest round is currently live on Freeports TV, I can't get it on the YouView Box but if you install an App called TV Player on your Amazon Fire TV Stick you can watch for free.

:doubleup: It's great that it's gone to Freesport this year as it makes it a hell of a lot easier to watch the coverage.