2019 Finnish Rallycross Championship (Rallicross SM) Supercar champion Juha Rytkönen made his FIA World Rallycross Championship debut at his home track -Kouvola – last weekend, driving the third Hyundai i20 under the GRX Set banner.
He became the 2018 Autokrossi class champion in his first season before taking the opportunity to do what was originally a one-off Supercar outting at Kouvola the same year as when the RallyX Nordic visited the venue before later choosing to stay in the class and has dominated ever since.
Rytkönen shocked everyone by his performance in Saturday’s round three of the 2020 World RX series and stayed within the top five times in all of the qualifying sessions.
He won his semi-final on the Saturday and started alongside Johan Kristoffersson on the front row of the final where he went on to take second in his first appearance in the World RX series.
On the Sunday, Rytkönen continued with his fine performance as he had to deal with the very rainy conditions at Kouvola, again going on to post some quick laptimes and ended the intermediate standings in seventh place.
In the semi-final he finished third that saw him again progress to the final – this time starting on the last row – but a stewards decision was made after the end of the semi-final claiming Rytkönen ran wide in turn one and was deemed to have exceeded the track limits, so therefore he received a five seconds time penalty and had to miss out on taking part in the final.
Rytkönen added on his day two performance: “The wet race was very difficult, but I managed to keep my speed and join the battles for positions. Unfortunately, one of those battles cost me a place in the Final. I am really happy about this weekend and I hope I can prove myself again someday,”
