As qualifying concludes on day one of Nitro Rallycross, Robin Larsson topped the leaderboard as the top qualifier going into tomorrow’s day of racing.
Larsson managed to beat out Niclas Gronholm, teammate Andreas Bakkerud, and finally Kris Meeke to lead the timesheets after Saturday’s qualifying ended. The RX Cartel driver will go into Sunday’s racing being on pole for the first heat. Following him into the final battle bracket was Kris Meeke who managed to compete quite well for his first outing in rallycross but suffered from a technical issue in the final race.
Yuri Belevskiy and Fraser McConnell went toe-to-toe during the supercars battle brackets final but Belevskiy came out on top. McConnell performed well in the Hyundai i20 but Belevskiy was also running top machinery in the Audi S1 both dominating their competition in the supercar class over Patrick O’Donovan, Tristien O’Venden, and Dom Flitney. Supercars resume tomorrow within the standard racing of heats.
NRX NEXT started off the day with a red flag on the first race after Simon Olofsson and George Megennis battled and Olofsson rolled his car stopping the session. Following the carnage, NRX NEXT managed to have some of the weekend’s closest racing as reigning champion Casper Jansson beat out his fellow top contenders Tommi Hallman and Ole Henry Steinsholt. Jansson now leads the NEXT championship going into two-weekend doubleheaders.
The introduction of crosscars made for fierce competition on Saturday as cars were ablaze on track. Ronalds Baldins was involved in some heated on-track battles but no more than his run in the final when on lap 4 a red flag was thrown after contact and his car caught fire, luckily Baldins got away safely. Failing to restart the final, the overall winner of day one was Pasi Penttinen after managing to hold off Rika Huuhka and Isac Egonsson.
Heat racing and round two of NRX NEXT and crosscars resume tomorrow to close out Nitro Rallycross at Lydden Hill.
