PoloDriver

At last! It took a while, but Johan Kristoffersson finally achieved the first FIA World Rallycross Championship podium finish for the newly-formed Volkswagen RX Sweden team at the World RX of Canada. The event at Trois-Rivières in Quebec marked the seventh round of the 2016 series and the mid-way point of the season, and 27 year-old Kristoffersson made it onto the third step of the podium.

‘Really good to be back here’
‘We’ve been so close and finally our hard work has paid off and we are back on the podium – it feels really good to be back here,’ said a jubilant Kristoffersson, who is now just three points off third place in the Drivers’ Championship. ‘Petter Solberg was outstanding in the semi-final and I felt like I couldn’t catch him, but then the rain started and our car works so well in the rain. The first two laps were really good for us and the car worked perfectly,’ he continued.

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Canada: Kristoffersson

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Canada: Kristoffersson

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Canada: Kristoffersson

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Canada: Kristoffersson

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Canada: Kristoffersson

Kristoffersson’s team-mate Anton Marklund also made the final in Canada, but just missed out on a top five finish, coming home sixth. His Polo RX suffered a brake failure and he collided with ex-World Rally Champion Petter Solberg’s Citroën DS3 RX. Marklund subsequently hit a wall on the first lap of the Supercar final, and damaged a rear tyre. Both he and Solberg were taken to the medical centre for precautionary checks, with both drivers being declared fine.

Three consecutive podiums
The Canadian round of the World Rallycross Championship has been kind to the 600bhp Polo RX Supercar – the small but powerful Volkswagen has achieved three consecutive podiums at the North American event. Marklund finished second at the famous street circuit in 2014, while the Volkswagen RX Sweden car finished second and third at the 2015 event, with Finland’s Toomas Heikkinen and America’s Tanner Foust.

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Canada: Marklund

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Canada

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Canada: Marklund

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Canada: Kristoffersson

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Canada: Marklund

Before the event, Kristoffersson reported that a few changes to the super-Polo had taken place: ‘We have made a few updates that will no doubt help us. Last season we were strong in Canada at the start of the weekend, this year we want to remain focussed throughout the entire event.’

Volkswagen RX Sweden Team Principal Michael Schneider confirmed the car is a match for its competitors: ‘When I look back on the first half of the season, I’m very happy with the performance of the car and both drivers. We have produced a very competitive car for 2016.’

Timmy Hansen won the World RX of Canada for Team Peugeot Hansen. the Swede took an unexpected victory after he was promoted to the final when Russia’s Timur Timerzyanov was black flagged after an incident in the semi-final. The next round of the 2016 FIA World Rallycross Championship is the World RX of France, which takes place in Lohéac from 2-4 September.

2016 FIA WORLD RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP,

DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

1 Petter Solberg, Citroën DS3: 161
2 Mattias Ekström, Audi S1: 157
3 Andreas Bakkerud, Ford Focus RS: 132
4 Johan Kristoffersson, Volkswagen Polo: 129
5 Sébastien Loeb, Peugeot 208: 121

2016 FIA WORLD RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP,

TEAMS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

1 EKS: 256
2 Team Peugeot Hansen: 226
3 Volkswagen RX Sweden: 188
4 Hoonigan Racing Division: 167
5 World RX Team Austria: 126

[Images: FIAWorldRallycross.com / Volkswagen RX Sweden]

Once again the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) failed to lived up its 2016 all-conquering Sébastien Ogier expectations, with part-time Citroën driver Kris Meeke stepping onto the winner’s podium at the eighth round of the series, Rally Finland. Finnish Volkswagen Motorsport driver Jari-Matti Latvala was second at his home rally, set in the forests and lakes around Jyväskylä on 28-31 July.

Form in Finland
Latvala has form in Finland, having won one of the fastest events on the WRC calendar in both 2015 and 2014, and he set the pace on the pre-event shakedown, 0.5 seconds ahead of team-mates Sébastien Ogier and Andreas Mikkelsen, both of whom tied for second. Latvala’s start in Finland – his 164th – saw him surpass Mikko Hirvonen as the most experienced Finnish rally driver in WRC history.

The Finn’s second place in his home country event sees him and co-driver Miikka Anttila climb to third place in the Drivers’ Championship, behind runner-up team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen and fellow Volkswagen Motorsport driver and current world champion Sébastien Ogier. Although a good result, wrc.com reports that a ‘lack of fighting spirit’ was to blame for the Finnish driver not securing a third successive win.

However, it was Ogier’s somewhat uncharacteristic excursion into a ditch following a tight hairpin on stage 10 which made him revaluate his performance. Overall, though, Latvala seemed happy with the result: ‘I am happy with my performance this weekend, even though I came up just short of a hat-trick of wins at the Rally Finland.

‘Very good haul’
‘Second place and a point on the Power Stage is a very good haul. I also climbed a place in the overall standings. All in all, we could not have done any more against Kris Meeke this weekend. Thank you to all the many fans who supported me. It is always very special to drive here on home soil. We now move on to the asphalt season, which was remarkably good to me last year,’ he stated.

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Finland: Latvala/Anttila

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Finland: Latvala/Anttila

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Finland: Latvala/Anttila

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Finland: Latvala/Anttila

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Finland: Latvala/Anttila

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Round six of the 2016 FIA World Rallycross Championship saw the second double final of the season for home team Volkswagen RX Sweden, with Polo RX drivers Johan Kristoffersson and Anton Marklund finishing the event in fifth and fourth places respectively.

The 1.21km Holjes Motorstadion circuit played host to the FIA World Rallycross Championship circus from 1-3 July and Marklund set the fastest lap on day one’s wet conditions. The young Swede fought his way through the traffic-filled qualification races and made it into the semi-finals. A third-place finish in the second semi-final saw him join Kristoffersson in the Supercar final.

In the final race, Sebastien Loeb’s Peugeot was put under pressure by Marklund’s Polo on the opening lap and the Swede passed the Frenchman at the start of the second lap. Disappointingly, a technical issue slowed the 600bhp Polo down towards the end of the race, and resulted in a fourth-place finish.

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Sweden: Marklund

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Sweden: Marklund

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Sweden: Marklund

‘Fastest lap time’
Marklund was content with his run, though: ‘The pace has been really good, we really showed that we have found a lot of speed, especially from testing. I had the fastest lap time for the whole of Saturday – that really showed what we could do.

‘Holjes is a tough track, it’s easy to damage the car and to get in trouble, so I played it safe to get to the semis. You know at Holjes if you are on the back row of the semis that you have to be quite aggressive, I was into turn one and I made it into the final,’ he continued.

‘I knew I had to do that again in the final. I was third position after turn two and I was faster than Loeb on the first lap and was able to pass him. When I jokered, I came out right in front of Mattias Ekstrom, but then I started to have some troubles with the car. It will be fixed easily and we will be ready for Canada, where I have always been in the final,’ he concluded.

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Sweden: Kristoffersson

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Sweden: Kristoffersson

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Sweden: Kristoffersson

Top of the pack
Kristoffersson meanwhile finished top of the pack after the first day’s second qualifying session and remained there at the Intermediate Classification after the fourth qualifying heat. He secured 16 championship points as well as a front row start for the first semi-final, from where he made it onto the second row for the final itself.

A great start saw Kristoffersson joker straight away and the driver from Arvika seemed to be heading for a podium place. Sadly, a puncture on the front of his Polo with just two laps remaining put paid to any podium hopes, and dropped the 27 year-old down to fifth.

Like Marklund, Kristoffersson was pleased with the pace of the Volkswagen Polo RX Sweden Polo: ‘We came here with some new updates and we proved all through the event that we have been quick in wet, dry and tricky conditions. I have to say that we really had the pace this weekend again, like we did in the first four events of the season.

‘We’ve found a lot of speed since Norway, which is great. It’s boring that we got the puncture in the final, as I was in a very good position to get a podium. We lost a bit on lap one but we caught it back and on lap four I was right on Andreas Bakkerud’s bumper, but I landed from the jump at turn two and got a puncture. That’s life.’

Kristoffersson currently sits fourth in the Drivers’ Championship, while Volkswagen RX Sweden is third in the manufacturers’ points. The seventh round of the 2016 FIA World Rallycross Championship takes place at Trois-Rivieres in Canada on 6-7 August.

2016 FIA WORLD RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP,

DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

1 Mattias Ekström, Audi S1: 142
2 Petter Solberg, Citroën DS3: 137
3 Andreas Bakkerud, Ford Focus RS: 110
4 Sébastien Loeb, Peugeot 208: 106
5 Johan Kristoffersson, Volkswagen Polo: 106

2016 FIA WORLD RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP,

TEAMS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

1 EKS: 224
2 Team Peugeot Hansen: 192
3 Volkswagen RX Sweden: 152
4 Hoonigan Racing Division: 133
5 World RX Team Austria: 109

[Images: FIAWorldRallycross.com / Volkswagen RX Sweden]

In what must be the closest event yet this season, the seventh round of the 2016 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) saw victory go to Volkswagen Motorsport’s Andreas Mikkelsen – but it was down to the wire. Up until the penultimate stage, Estonian DMACK Fiesta crew Ott Tänak and Raigo Mõlder had set a blistering pace on Rally Poland and looked untouchable.

Mikkelsen and co-driver Anders Jæger had driven on the edge of their limits all weekend, and had chased Tanak hard. They were consigning themselves to the second step of the Polish podium, when the Estonian duo suffered an unfortunately-timed puncture on the penultimate stage. An emergency tyre change saw the pair relegated to second place, and the disappointment was palpable.

Sweep supremely fast
A dry event right up until the final day had seen Mikkelsen’s 318bhp Polo R WRC sweep supremely fast through the majority of the event’s 306.1km, and when the rain arrived, it altered grip levels instantly, Tanak one of the casualties who lost time due to tyre choice. And while the runner-up position is still held in high regard, it didn’t soften the blow dealt by the Norwegian Volkswagen driver’s second WRC win.

New-for-2016 pairing Mikkelsen and Jæger proved their mettle in Poland and were the third duo onto the route for the first two days of the rally, which saw them sweep the road clear of loosed gravel for the following drivers. And as first-runner Ogier knows, that’s a distinct disadvantage which slows the car down. However, the young guns from Norway still finished in the top three on 15 of the 21 special stages, and made sure the battle with Tänak and Mõlder lasted for the whole event.

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Poland: Mikkelsen/Jæger

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Poland: Mikkelsen/Jæger

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Poland: Mikkelsen/Jæger

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Poland: Mikkelsen/Jæger

Andreas Mikkelsen

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It was another challenging weekend for the Volkswagen RX Sweden team at the World RX of Norway, the fifth round of the 2016 FIA World Rallycross Championship. The 1.02km-long circuit at Hell played host to 44 600bhp World RX Supercars, with home Ford Focus RS pilot Andreas Bakkerud becoming the first driver ever in FIA World Rallycross Championship history to win all four qualifying sessions plus the semi-final and final.

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Norway: Kristoffersson

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Norway: Kristoffersson

2016 Volkswagen Polo RX, World RX of Norway: Kristoffersson

The 10-12 June were a difficult two days for the Volkswagen Polo RXs of Johan Kristoffersson and Anton Marklund. Kristoffersson finished seventh (fourth in the first semi-final), while Maryland was a further eight places down the field (seventh in the fourth qualifying heat).

With Kristoffersson currently fourth in the overall drivers’ standings and Volkswagen RX Sweden third in the teams’ points, the Swedish-based rallycross outfit is looking forward to the sixth round of the series and its ‘home’ event, the World RX of Sweden, which takes place from 1-3 July at Höljes Motorstadion.

2016 FIA WORLD RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP,

DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS
1 Mattias Ekström, Audi S1: 125
2 Petter Solberg, Citroën DS3: 120
3 Sébastien Loeb, Peugeot 208: 83
4 Johan Kristoffersson, Volkswagen Polo: 83
5 Andreas Bakkerud, Ford Focus RS: 81

2016 FIA WORLD RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP,

TEAMS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS
1 EKS: 195
2 Team Peugeot Hansen: 151
3 Volkswagen RX Sweden: 117
4 Hoonigan Racing Division: 100
5 World RX Team Austria: 94

[Images: FIAWorldRallycross.com / Volkswagen RX Sweden]