FIA World Rallycross Championship 2018

[tbtstt 2,387]

Well an interesting result from Belgium with a dramatic semi-final 2 and final. Timmy Hansen denied another win at Mettet, but still a good weekend for Peugeot. The latest iteration of the 208 looked to have speed in rounds one and two, great to see the car deliver. Also good news for the Championship with Johan finishing further down the order and the points all closing up.

I am starting to go off Ekstrom: for a driver who frequently preaches about clean racing that is the second heavy turn one contact he has been involved with this year. I'd have been livid if I was Grosset-Janin.

[RallyDriven 398]

tbtstt said:

Well an interesting result from Belgium with a dramatic semi-final 2 and final. Timmy Hansen denied another win at Mettet, but still a good weekend for Peugeot. The latest iteration of the 208 looked to have speed in rounds one and two, great to see the car deliver. Also good news for the Championship with Johan finishing further down the order and the points all closing up.

I am starting to go off Ekstrom: for a driver who frequently preaches about clean racing that is the second heavy turn one contact he has been involved with this year. I'd have been livid if I was Grosset-Janin.

Both times have just involved him too, it wasn’t like he was being squashed himself from the other side. He just closed gaps that weren’t there and ended the races of both Petter and Grosset. I’ve never been a big fan of him, but that really isn’t helping him improve his image for me!

[bogani 756]

As I've said before, Ekström has always been a very tough driver, sometimes even borderline dirty.

[mats27 83]

Final was great, nice to have a race where 1 car isn't able to pull away into the distance.

Hansen in the Semi finals was super impressive, hope they can challenge Audi and VW more often.

[tbtstt 2,387]

mats27 said:

Final was great, nice to have a race where 1 car isn't able to pull away into the distance.

Hansen in the Semi finals was super impressive, hope they can challenge Audi and VW more often.

The Peugeot Sport 208 is looking like the car to take the fight to the PSRXVW Polos. Peugeot were unlucky in Spain and Portugal, but everything came together for Loeb in Belgium: and, despite the problems, Timmy Hansen still claimed a podium. 

I was expecting Bakkerud to be placing a little higher at this point in the season. He has some knowledge of Silverstone though, so perhaps the next round will be his time to shine. 

[mats27 83]

tbtstt said:

mats27 said:

Final was great, nice to have a race where 1 car isn't able to pull away into the distance.

Hansen in the Semi finals was super impressive, hope they can challenge Audi and VW more often.

The Peugeot Sport 208 is looking like the car to take the fight to the PSRXVW Polos. Peugeot were unlucky in Spain and Portugal, but everything came together for Loeb in Belgium: and, despite the problems, Timmy Hansen still claimed a podium. 

I was expecting Bakkerud to be placing a little higher at this point in the season. He has some knowledge of Silverstone though, so perhaps the next round will be his time to shine. 

Bakkerud seems to have struggled, either the pace isn't there, or he gets caught up in incidents.

[dwkGravey 0]

I fell asleep during the Spainish GP, but WRX keeps delivering, especially now that Peugeot has shown they can win this year.

[RallyDriven 398]

Yeah, F1 was so boring after the safety car. Even exciting f1 races are nothing on pretty much most other motorsports. There’s just no battles, everyone just following 2 seconds apart. Overtakes only happen due to drs, and it’s impossible for the other driver to come back

[DiRTKiNG808 15]

WOW! RX of Belgium was fricken awesome! Such a great race! Semi 2 and the Final were just brilliant. Bakkerud fighting back 2 Jokers was super fun to watch. Glad to see the Final shaken up for different results. BRING ON THE ACTION!

[RallyDriven 398]

Silverstone has been great so far today! Loads of action and some really great races! For all the talk before the event of it not being as good as Lydden, it’s completely exceeded my expectations 

[mats27 83]

It was a lot of fun, could get quite close to the jump too, the ARX cars were mighty through there. 

[RallyDriven 398]

mats27 said:

It was a lot of fun, could get quite close to the jump too, the ARX cars were mighty through there. 

I wanted to go over there to watch the jump, but it looked like you would struggle to see the rest of the track, so we stayed on the main straight for all the races. If they had a grandstand over there for next year that would be really cool! If it wasn’t stupidly expensive, I would definitely get a grandstand ticket for next year. 

The racing was great all day, the semi finals were a bit crazy, Kristofferson hit that turn one barrier very hard! And Loeb’s Move for third on Ekstrom was great in the final! The track really surprised me with the racing it produced

[tbtstt 2,387]

Despite my mixed feelings about Silverstone, I was presented with a last minute opportunity to get there, so I caved in and went yesterday.

On the positive side this was much better organized than the British Championship round. Quick parking, quick entry and a quick exit. The whole street food thing was uber hipster, but I can't deny that there was some decent grub and the prices, although steep, were not excessive for a track event. There were a lot of static displays in and around the paddock area (plus some moving stuff), so quite a lot to check out aside from the racing. I'm fairly confident that you couldn't get anywhere near the same amount of content into the existing Lydden layout.

Would the above influence my decision to go to the event? Personally no, but I can see the day/weekend being a lot more appealing for the casual racing fan and I guess a wider audience is part of what Speed Machine is all about. 

And the negatives? Well, as nice as the above refinements were, I don't think (as has been discussed before) that they justified the steep increase in ticket cost. I did a brief walk around the spectator area and the jump area was the only place for photos. The crowd line is actually pretty close around turn one, but (obviously) there is high fencing there, so no photo opportunities. That said, I guess you could make the same critique of a number of European circuits. There are no high fences down the bottom of the circuit (and there seemed to be quite a number of people watching from there at the end of the day), but it's quite a way back. 

The core issue for me though is still the track layout. There have definitely been refinements made since the British round, but it's still a slow circuit and not conducive to overtaking. With five months until the next use of the circuit I wonder if changes will be made? 

Oh, and how many times do I have to say it: can people please stop employing Christian Stevenson. I would rather **** in my hands and clap then have to listen to his excruciating stage patter.

[mats27 83]

RallyDriven said:

mats27 said:

It was a lot of fun, could get quite close to the jump too, the ARX cars were mighty through there. 

I wanted to go over there to watch the jump, but it looked like you would struggle to see the rest of the track, so we stayed on the main straight for all the races. If they had a grandstand over there for next year that would be really cool! If it wasn’t stupidly expensive, I would definitely get a grandstand ticket for next year. 

The racing was great all day, the semi finals were a bit crazy, Kristofferson hit that turn one barrier very hard! And Loeb’s Move for third on Ekstrom was great in the final! The track really surprised me with the racing it produced

Highlight was Scheider running with the bonnet over his window, almost winning the heat somehow. 

[RallyDriven 398]

tbtstt said:

Despite my mixed feelings about Silverstone, I was presented with a last minute opportunity to get there, so I caved in and went yesterday.

On the positive side this was much better organized than the British Championship round. Quick parking, quick entry and a quick exit. The whole street food thing was uber hipster, but I can't deny that there was some decent grub and the prices, although steep, were not excessive for a track event. There were a lot of static displays in and around the paddock area (plus some moving stuff), so quite a lot to check out aside from the racing. I'm fairly confident that you couldn't get anywhere near the same amount of content into the existing Lydden layout.

Would the above influence my decision to go to the event? Personally no, but I can see the day/weekend being a lot more appealing for the casual racing fan and I guess a wider audience is part of what Speed Machine is all about. 

And the negatives? Well, as nice as the above refinements were, I don't think (as has been discussed before) that they justified the steep increase in ticket cost. I did a brief walk around the spectator area and the jump area was the only place for photos. The crowd line is actually pretty close around turn one, but (obviously) there is high fencing there, so no photo opportunities. That said, I guess you could make the same critique of a number of European circuits. There are no high fences down the bottom of the circuit (and there seemed to be quite a number of people watching from there at the end of the day), but it's quite a way back. 

The core issue for me though is still the track layout. There have definitely been refinements made since the British round, but it's still a slow circuit and not conducive to overtaking. With five months until the next use of the circuit I wonder if changes will be made? 

Oh, and how many times do I have to say it: can people please stop employing Christian Stevenson. I would rather **** in my hands and clap then have to listen to his excruciating stage patter.

I thought the layout was pretty decent. The first corner allowed lines in the inside and outside, and if you could hold the outside line through turns 1 and 2, you would be on the inside for turn 3. Quite a few managed to pull it off over the weekend, others couldn’t. Think it was turn 7 maybe, it was the turn furthest to the right anyway, which was easy to make mistakes on and go wide allowing some overtakes there too. The Joker also made for some great race finishes with the merge right by the finish.

The worst thing for me was the stupid ticket prices. I got mine 20% off the pre booked price, so I paid £40 instead of £50. But turning up on the day with no ticket on Sunday was £75! I wouldn’t want to pay much more than the £40 that I paid for the day, especially as I’m not interested in all the festival stuff afterwards

[tbtstt 2,387]

RallyDriven said:

tbtstt said:

Despite my mixed feelings about Silverstone, I was presented with a last minute opportunity to get there, so I caved in and went yesterday.

On the positive side this was much better organized than the British Championship round. Quick parking, quick entry and a quick exit. The whole street food thing was uber hipster, but I can't deny that there was some decent grub and the prices, although steep, were not excessive for a track event. There were a lot of static displays in and around the paddock area (plus some moving stuff), so quite a lot to check out aside from the racing. I'm fairly confident that you couldn't get anywhere near the same amount of content into the existing Lydden layout.

Would the above influence my decision to go to the event? Personally no, but I can see the day/weekend being a lot more appealing for the casual racing fan and I guess a wider audience is part of what Speed Machine is all about. 

And the negatives? Well, as nice as the above refinements were, I don't think (as has been discussed before) that they justified the steep increase in ticket cost. I did a brief walk around the spectator area and the jump area was the only place for photos. The crowd line is actually pretty close around turn one, but (obviously) there is high fencing there, so no photo opportunities. That said, I guess you could make the same critique of a number of European circuits. There are no high fences down the bottom of the circuit (and there seemed to be quite a number of people watching from there at the end of the day), but it's quite a way back. 

The core issue for me though is still the track layout. There have definitely been refinements made since the British round, but it's still a slow circuit and not conducive to overtaking. With five months until the next use of the circuit I wonder if changes will be made? 

Oh, and how many times do I have to say it: can people please stop employing Christian Stevenson. I would rather **** in my hands and clap then have to listen to his excruciating stage patter.

I thought the layout was pretty decent. The first corner allowed lines in the inside and outside, and if you could hold the outside line through turns 1 and 2, you would be on the inside for turn 3. Quite a few managed to pull it off over the weekend, others couldn’t. Think it was turn 7 maybe, it was the turn furthest to the right anyway, which was easy to make mistakes on and go wide allowing some overtakes there too. The Joker also made for some great race finishes with the merge right by the finish.

The worst thing for me was the stupid ticket prices. I got mine 20% off the pre booked price, so I paid £40 instead of £50. But turning up on the day with no ticket on Sunday was £75! I wouldn’t want to pay much more than the £40 that I paid for the day, especially as I’m not interested in all the festival stuff afterwards

The ticket price was a massive sore point for a lot of people. Last year at Lydden you could turn up and buy a weekend ticket on the gate for £55. The same ticket at Silverstone was £125. A lot of the extra bits were nice window dressing, but not worth the extra in my opinion.

I actually disagree with regards to the circuit, as the average speed was very slow. There were several races where cars that were clearly quicker had no way past a slower car in front. If they got rid of turn three and extended the bottom of the circuit further out past the jump I think the track would become much faster. 

[RallyDriven 398]

Yeah that’s a fair point, there were a number of occasions when people were getting held up and couldn’t pass. I agree that it needed some faster sections, not sure if I’d remove turn 3 though as that was were a lot of the overtakes took place after the start, and where a lot of positions were decided early on. It’s difficukt, as although there wasn’t much overtaking elsewhere, there was lots of action with people either crashing out or going out wide.

[DiRTKiNG808 15]

Really good action from Silverstone. I like the track. Can anyone beat Kristofferson (spelled wrong I think). The dude is like a robot, I’m getting sick of him winning. I also watched the ARX round and boy was that exciting! I love the look of the Subaru’s. I hope they make it to the World RX line up eventually.

[RallyDriven 398]

DiRTKiNG808 said:

Really good action from Silverstone. I like the track. Can anyone beat Kristofferson (spelled wrong I think). The dude is like a robot, I’m getting sick of him winning. I also watched the ARX round and boy was that exciting! I love the look of the Subaru’s. I hope they make it to the World RX line up eventually.

The best bit of the ARX was when Liam Doran started crashing into everything

[mats27 83]

Kristofferson is unbeatable when he gets out in front. You need to get the jump on him out of the box, or it's over.

[tbtstt 2,387]

DiRTKiNG808 said:

 Can anyone beat Kristofferson (spelled wrong I think). 

Almost; you just missed an s! :smiley:

DiRTKiNG808 said:

I love the look of the Subaru’s. I hope they make it to the World RX line up eventually.

Part of the reason I caved in and went to Silverstone was to see the Beetles and Subarus. The Beetles are very quick and the Scoobs look great. Shame Higgins couldn't mount more of a challenge in the final. 

RallyDriven said:

DiRTKiNG808 said:

Really good action from Silverstone. I like the track. Can anyone beat Kristofferson (spelled wrong I think). The dude is like a robot, I’m getting sick of him winning. I also watched the ARX round and boy was that exciting! I love the look of the Subaru’s. I hope they make it to the World RX line up eventually.

The best bit of the ARX was when Liam Doran started crashing into everything

It seemed to take him most of the weekend to get the car to behave itself, but it was good to see him challenging the front runners in the final.

mats27 said:

Kristofferson is unbeatable when he gets out in front. You need to get the jump on him out of the box, or it's over.

I think Timmy might be quicker: it's just his luck seems to be terrible! Yet another round where he was taken out of the running by an issue that was out of his hands.  

Watching the replay of the Solberg/Kristoffersson crash I am still gobsmacked that nothing broke on Johan's car. The front left corner looks completed battered just after the impact and the car had quite a big impact with the tyre stack: luck always seems to be on his side with regards to breakages!

[DiRTKiNG808 15]

Thanks @tbtstt I only missed an s, I thought I would be way off. It does seem that Timmy is really quick. He will be a threat through out the season. I am also impressed by how Bakkerud has adapted to that Audi S1. I hope he can unlock the full potential to that car so that he can challenge for wins. Bakkerud is one of my favorites because he always puts on a good show and overall a great guy. I also can't wait for the USA round and more ARX. World RX is shaping up to be really good this season.

[Janneman60 154]

I think that is typically Timmy Hansen. Quick but or he has car troubles or he makes a mistake like Portugal. It doesn't get better over the years so for me Timmy is that guy that surprises every now and then but is never in for the championship. As for the Hansen bro I believe Kevin is the better driver.

[mats27 83]

DiRTKiNG808 said:

Thanks @tbtstt I only missed an s, I thought I would be way off. It does seem that Timmy is really quick. He will be a threat through out the season. I am also impressed by how Bakkerud has adapted to that Audi S1. I hope he can unlock the full potential to that car so that he can challenge for wins. Bakkerud is one of my favorites because he always puts on a good show and overall a great guy. I also can't wait for the USA round and more ARX. World RX is shaping up to be really good this season.

Bakkerud was really impressive at Silverstone, and he's been consistent, so he's challenging for the title. Timmy seems to be a threat at most rounds, but he's slowly dropping out of the title hunt with bad results.

[DiRTKiNG808 15]

mats27 said:

DiRTKiNG808 said:

Thanks @tbtstt I only missed an s, I thought I would be way off. It does seem that Timmy is really quick. He will be a threat through out the season. I am also impressed by how Bakkerud has adapted to that Audi S1. I hope he can unlock the full potential to that car so that he can challenge for wins. Bakkerud is one of my favorites because he always puts on a good show and overall a great guy. I also can't wait for the USA round and more ARX. World RX is shaping up to be really good this season.

Bakkerud was really impressive at Silverstone, and he's been consistent, so he's challenging for the title. Timmy seems to be a threat at most rounds, but he's slowly dropping out of the title hunt with bad results.

The next race is Hell which is my favorite RX track so I hope Bakkerud can grab the win there.