Kobe Pauwels, son of the former Belgians rallycross athlete Koen Pauwels, became the first driver of the season to deny a victory for his Volland Racing team-mate Yuri Belevskiy in the FIA European Rallycross Championship for RX3 as the 16-year-old succeeded with a well deserved win in round three held in Loheac last weekend.
Pauwels, who had never raced in Loheac before, proved himself to be a driver that seems to be learning things quite quickly. He put up a hard battle against his team-mate Belevskiy in the qualification sessions but only managed to beat him one time in Q3.
He ended up sitting second in the intermediate standings and proceeded to dominate the second semi-final and secure the front row, as the first semi-final, where Belevskiy was in had to do a restart and re-fuel due an accident that accured on the penultimate lap.

In the final Pauwels’ father, who is spotting for the teenager, called an early joker lap to give him clear air to chase down the race leader Belevskiy, as the Swiss [licensed] driver went in to his joker on the last lap, Pauwels managed to just slot in front of Belevskiy and managed to hold first place to the finish line to secure his maiden RX3 win.
Volland Racing’s RX3 veteran Timur Shigabutdinov took the third place to make a team lock out on the podiums while the fellow Russian team-mate Marat Knyazev bringed the last Audi A1 in to fourth. Former European Rally Championship driver Jan Cerny finished fifth and local hero Maximilien Eveno rounded up the final in last place.