VW-Marklund Motorsport star Toomas “Topi” Heikkinen enjoyed a better weekend at the German round of the 2014 FIA World Rallycross Championship, making up for the difficult weekend he endured last time out in France.
Topi started the weekend off in fine form by winning his Heat One race and finishing 3rd in his Heat Two race to leave him in 6th place in the standings at the end of Day One. He carried on the excellent speed in his VW Polo Supercar into Heat Three where he finished his race in 2nd position and after finishing his Heat Four race in 4th place, that was enough to qualify Heikkinen into Semi-Final Two. Taking 3rd position in the Semi-Final meant he qualified for the Supercar Final where he would finish the race in 5th position.
Heikkinen had nothing but positives to take away from his weekends work, “This is an awesome car!” he said. “We just had one or two problems with the engine software that held us back, and in Germany it’s really hard to get past people, so if you start off with an issue it’s very difficult to make the time up if the person in front of you doesn’t make a mistake. And actually nobody was making many mistakes at all this weekend – ourselves included, luckily – which just goes to show the high level of competition in the championship, which is fantastic. It’s a great place to be: we’re all fierce rivals on the track but afterwards we are the first to congratulate each other, which is how motorsport should be.”
Heikkinen also carries that positive attitude towards his work to chase down championship leader Petter Solberg, who is 52 points ahead of him, “In the end I want to win everything, but sometimes you have to be realistic and settle for what you can get,” said Topi afterwards. “Petter Solberg did a really good job here, so fair enough. But we’ve got three rounds left and I’m going to be doing my best to win them all. It’s a slightly tough period for us at the moment, but bad luck comes and goes. I’m still feeling very optimistic if you look at our speed.”
The next round of this years FIA World Rallycross Championship takes place at Franciacorta in Italy this weekend.
