The FIA World Rallycross Championship began it’s second official pre-season test today at the new Silverstone rallycross track, and it was EKS Audi Sport’s Mattias Ekstrom who went quickest overall.
Ekstrom went quickest in the afternoon session to put him at the top of the timesheets for the first day of the two-day test. Close behind him was Team Peugeot Total’s Timmy Hansen, who had already had a taste of the new track when competing in the MSA British Rallycross Championship‘s first round there last weekend. The third fastest honours went to Ekstrom’s new team-mate, Andreas Bakkerud.
Reigning World Rallycross champion Johan Kristofferson only managed to put the PSRX Volkswagen Sweden ‘Polo R’ fifth fastest, after being narrowly bested by Kevin Eriksson in the Ford Fiesta for the Olsbergs MSE team. The sixth quickest around the new track today was Janis Baumanis, who remains with Team Stard for 2018.
Jerome Grosset Janin was seventh fastest in the new GC Kompetition Renault Megané RS, going marginally quicker than two-time World Rallycross champion, Petter Solberg. The other GC Kompetition driver, Guerlain Chicherit was ninth.
The fastest of the RX2 cars out on track today was driven by a combination of last year’s third-placed driver in the series, Guillaume de Ridder and Eriksson, who finished faster than the supercar of Gregoire Demoustier in the Sebastien Loeb Racing Peugeot 208. The final two cars on the timesheets were both RX2s, with Vasily Gryazin finishing twelfth fastest and rookie Nathan Heathcote thirteenth.
