Team STARD have been steadily improving during the 2017 FIA World Rallycross Championship with Timur Timerzyanov being the teams first driver to make it to a Supercar Final so far.
However Janis Baumanis changed that as World RX moved to the magic weekend at Holjes in Sweden. The 2017 World RX of Sweden was another positive event for Manfred Stohl‘s team, despite the slow start for both Baumanis and Timerzyanov who were both in fifteenth and eleventh places respectively after Q2.
Timur Timerzyanov pushed hard at Holjes. Credit: Team STARD
Sunday saw a further improvement in pace for Timerzyanov as the former Double European Rallycross Champion finished in eleventh place to secure a Semi-Final spot whilst his Latvian team-mate increased his pace to finish in eighth place overall and also qualify for the Semi’s.
Whilst Timerzyanov missed out on a place in the Supercar Final by finishing in fifth place in Semi-Final One, Baumanis moved forward in Semi-Final Two after seeing Petter Solberg stall his Volkswagen Polo and proceeded to come home in third place behind Andreas Bakkerud and Kevin Eriksson.
Janis Baumanis started his first Supercar Final in 2017 at Holjes. Credit: Team STARD.
Baumanis kept his head as he took his joker on lap three of the Supercar Final and kept his focus to bring home his privateer team run Ford Fiesta RXS in sixth place to score further points in the Driver’s Championship and Teams Championship.
Team Principal Manfred Stohl was once again satisfied with the performance of both of his drivers against the World RX Manufacturer teams.
Manfred Stohl is happy with how his drivers did at Holjes. Credit: IMG / FIA World RX
“This was for sure the best performance of Janis Baumanis so far this year. He fought hard and demonstrated, that he must not hide from the best pilots of the world. For Timur Timerzyanov, looking at his past performance, there would have been more possible.”
“But this is not a complaint. As a privateer team, we can be proud of having reached the Semi-Finals stage with both cars, here in the fantastic stronghold of Rallycross. This was certainly not a step back in our development.”
