24 Nov 2018 World Rallycross Championship (WRX) – Dust and drama
The final round of the 2018 World Rallycross Championship – WRX – took place at Killarney on November 24-25 and once again proved to be an action-packed weekend. This was the second time that the Cape Town circuit has hosted the championship finale and although the drivers’ title had already been won by Swede Johan Kristoffersson in his PSRX Volkswagen Polo R, the next four places had still to be decided. The weekend was sunny throughout, but the infamous Cape South-Easter whipped up dust clouds during the racing, which nevertheless failed to unduly bother the enthusiastic crowd.
A rare glitch with his car left Kristoffersson in last place after Qualifying 1 but throughout the next three qualification rounds, the semi-final and final he was the class of the field, taking overall victory. In the hotly contested final, Kristoffersson’s team-mate, Norwegian Petter Solberg, and Team Peugeot Total’s Swedish driver Timmy Hansen collided and put themselves out of contention, leaving another Swede, Mattias Ekström, to finish second in his Team EKS Audi Sport S1 Quattro and Frenchman Sébastien Loeb third in his Team Peugeot Total 208 WRX.
This was Kristofferson’s 11th win in the 12 championship rounds, an unprecedented achievement. He finished with 341 points, with Ekström taking second spot on 248, Andreas Bakkerud (Audi S1 Quattro) third on 237, Loeb fourth with 229 and Solberg fifth with 227.
