European Rallycross

Kevin Hansen Storms 2016 Euro RX of Norway

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Kevin Hansen took his second win of the 2016 FIA European Rallycross Championship after crushing the opposition at the Euro RX of Norway in his Peugeot-Hansen Academy 208 RX Supercar.

The young Swedish driver is in his first season of Supercars in Euro RX, however he is fast becoming a title favourite after his performance at round two of the series held at Hell in Norway. Hansen took his Peugeot to the fastest time in Q1 which saw Peugeot 208’s occupying the first five places. Hansen then went fastest again in Q2 to become the overnight leader ahead of Tommy Rustad in the Albatec Racing Peugeot and Tamas Pal Kiss in the Speed Box Racing 208. Both Rustad and Kiss would be his closest challengers in Q3 and Q4 but Hansen went on to take a clean sweep and pole position for Semi-Final One.

After taking the win in SF1, Hansen took pole on the front row for the Supercars Final with Kiss alongside him whilst the middle row saw Fredrik Salsten in his 208 with Peter Hedstrom in his Ford Fiesta completing the lineup. On the back row were Jerome Grosset-Janin and Tord Linnerud in his Volkswagen Polo. Rustad would not qualify for the Final after finishing in fourth place in SF1.

Hansen took off the line and led into turn one whilst Salsten suffered a poor start. Linnerud and Hedstrom took the joker on lap one and all of this meant that Grosset-Janin had moved up to second place and after passing Kiss on the run down to turn two, he was soon hassling the young Swedish driver for the lead. Kiss followed this up with some wild driving and on lap two took his joker, meaning he would fall behind Linnerud.

Hansen calmly kept onto his lead whilst behind him, Grosset-Janin was suffering with the track conditions. The track had been watered down after the Qualifying stages and this quickly meant that the Frenchman had a windscreen full of dirt with no working windscreen wipers. The albatec driver bravely fought on until lap five where Kiss attempted to pass him at the bottom of the hill. However the Hungarian went wide at the penultimate corner after suffering a puncture and this cause Hedstrom to take avoiding action by spinning his Fiesta.

Hansen took his joker on lap five and held enough of a lead to keep the advantage and he took his second win of the season with Tord Linnerud taking second place ahead of Tamas Pal Kiss. Hedstrom recovered to finish in fourth place whilst an engine issue meant that Grosset-Janin would finish in fifht place ahead of Salsten.

As the series now moves to Holjes in Sweden on July 1-3, Hansen now leads the Drivers Championship overall with a 12 point lead over Grosset-Janin with Tord Linnerud now in third place only two points behind

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I have been a very passionate fan of Motorsport for over 30 years with Touring Cars as my favourite form of Motor Racing. I cover The TCR UK Series, The TCR Europe Series and The FIA World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) as well as following various TCR Series around the world.
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