It was a tough day at the office for Anton Marklund in the GCK Bilstein Megane as a technical fault in qualifying one scuppered his chances of scoring well at the fifth round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship.
Qualifying one saw the left front driveshaft break causing Marklund to have to nurse the megane to the finish line, putting him sixteenth and in a very tough position to qualify from. First corner contact between a number of cars in qualifying two cost him a lot of time and put him fifteenth in the standings. Marklund managed to win his heat in qualifying three but it was only good enough for ninth in the session, putting him fourteenth overall and out of the semi-finals.
“A tough day here in Riga for round 5 of the Championship. We didn’t have the start we wanted with some technical stories early on and then we just tried to fight back from there” said Marklund. “We managed to climb some positions in Q2 and then climbed more again in Q3, however we did lose some time there as we were stuck behind Timur who had technical issues. Missing out on a spot in the semis by 2 points is really disappointing of course but we lost this one in Q1“.
Marklund is now fully focused on making sure he gets a clean run of things tomorrow for round six. “We just need to make sure we have a better start tomorrow to fight for the final.”
Overall, it was a very poor day for GCK Bilstein who have had a great run of form coming into this round. They will be hoping for no mechanical gremlins tomorrow as the action resumes from Riga.
