17-year-old Patrik Hallberg is now the latest driver who has shown strong interest by entering this year’s RallyX Nordic season in the CrossCar / Crosskart category, and now he hopes to make up for last year’s misfortune when he arrives to the season-opener in Nysum 1/2 May.
Last year, the dream of crown in the championship went to waste when he was forced to skip the season-final in Nysum. He was in second place total in the class with only one point from the leader after the round three in Arvika ,where he was dominating the three-first qualifying sessions until a gearbox issue came in Q4. This halted what could have been probably a clean sweep for Hallberg, he later won his semi-final and then the final.
Although he could not enter the season finale to compete for a medal, he was still very pleased with the season and at the start of the season in Höljes, he managed to take a total of five fastest times in the qualifying sessions of seven runs. He was close to taking home a win but unfortunately it did not go all the way forward because he spun out and stalled.
Hallberg managed to finish fifth out of 49 at the end-of-season in the championship standings and as a rookie in the class it was a huge achievement for the Swede, for this season he has acquired a brand-new EDGE Crosskart.
“It was such a hard decision to walk away empty-handed from RallyX Nordic last summer, I really wanted to challenge for the title because I knew that I could make it, but I will take that with me as motivation and hopefully get some silverware at the end of this season. I’m very excited as RallyX Nordic is my main goal this year. We are going to put all of our time and effort into this to achieve the best result possible,” Hallberg said.
“I definitely know the class better now, and whilst I am in a new car this year which makes it a bit trickier, I will put up a real fight! At the same time, I need to try to stay relaxed like I was at Arvika, because that really seemed to work for me. The competition was really tough last season, and I doubt it will be any easier this season. Naturally, I can take confidence from my previous performances, but everyone has been developing over the winter so we’ll see where we are when we get to the first race.
“For sure, it’s a great feeling to know that I can win and that I already have won at this level – that’s a reminder that I can do it even if things don’t always go perfectly to plan. I learned last year that if I could snatch a couple of points away from my opponents in the qualifying stages, that really helped the bigger picture – consistency was and will remain key. Of course the goal is always to win, but ultimately, if I have to let a race win go in view of the overall championship then that’s what I will do because the title is the biggest goal of all…”
