The season’s second FIA World Rallycross event to be held in Germany, last weekend at the Estering near Hamburg, has been pretty dramatic for Team Peugeot-Hansen.
While Timmy Hansen scored his third podium of the season (and the team’s sixth in a row) by finishing second, sandwiched in between the Audis of winner Mattias Ekström and Toomas Heikkinen, his younger brother Kevin also appeared in the final, bringing his older-spec Peugeot 208 WRX to sixth overall.
As for the team’s lead driver, nine-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb of France, the weekend has been nothing short of frustrating, hampered as it was by less-than-optimal qualifying runs; not only that, but the usual first-corner carnage at the start of his semi-final denied him a spot in the final.
“All three of our cars showed good speed over the weekend but things didn’t always pan out in our favour”, says Peugeot-Hansen’s team principal, Kenneth Hansen.
“We know that anything can happen at the Estering track because of the highly unpredictable first turn. Sébastien was pushed by another car in Q1 and it was hard for him to fight his way back up the field after that. Things went better for Timmy and Kevin, though, and we weren’t far off getting all three cars into the final.”
“In the last race itself, Kevin and Timmy both figured in the top three at one stage. We had the potential to win and we will now do everything we can to make that happen at the final round in Cape Town.”
The final round of this year’s World RX Championship will be held in just over a month, 10-12 November, at the Killarney racetrack in Cape Town, South Africa.
