After winning three out of the first four races of the 2018 FIA World Rallycross Championship, Johan Kristoffersson is looking forward to returning to the scene of another of his victories from last year – Hell in Norway.
The PSRX Volkswagen Team Sweden driver is currently leading the driver’s championship, looking to emulate his success from last year and become a two-time World RX champion. Team boss and team-mate, Petter Solberg, is having less luck in the season so far and sits in fourth.
Although statistics would suggest Kristoffersson is dominating the season like he did last year, the results fail to tell the whole story – with competition incredibly close. In fact, it was Mattias Ekstrom who won the opening round of the championship in Barcelona, only to be disqualified later for his contact with Solberg, and Sébastien Loeb has also been keeping Kristoffersson on his toes after taking a win in Belgium.
Hell is a driver-favourite track, with Kristoffersson being no exception. An original rallycross track with a good flow means that good racing is to be expected.
“I like this track,” he commented.
“I won here last year and the Volkswagen Polo R Supercar was really fast there – I hope it’s going to be the same story this time. This is an original rallycross track, the way it flows is really nice. Great track.
“What I also like a lot is that the [entry to the] joker lap is in the first corner, so this splits out the field a bit more straight away from the start. There should be less first-corner carnage than we have seen in some of the races more recently with the cars a bit more spread out.
“The last round at Silverstone was a tough track, it was just corner-corner-corner all the time, there was no real gravel there and nowhere to carry speed. But what was good for me a few times was to get out at the front, get into some clear air, get clear of the pack and drive my race – I feel I didn’t do much of that this season and that’s what I want to do more of this weekend.
“I think we’re still to find the sweet spot with this one – there’s more to come. There are some ideas, some really small details with the car which I would love to test. Will they make the car quicker? I don’t know for sure, but to try them would give us some more ideas for making the car even more perfect!”
