Andreas Bakkerud took the final victory of the FIA World Rallycross Championship of the season in Argentina.
The Norwegian had plenty of speed throughout the weekend, that was run a bit untraditionally. We only saw one qualifying heat on Saturday, after a heavy thunderstorm meant the rest of the Saturday had to be cancelled. The last three qualifying heats had to be run on Sunday morning, while the semifinals and final were held during the afternoon.
Petter Solberg was the only 2nd guy in the World Championship history to win all 4 qualifying heats. He finish to the weekend came in Semifinal 1 where a very overly motivated Timur Timerzyanov drove into the side of Solberg and his own teammate Janis Baumanis among others. That gave Baumanis a puncture and a a broken steering to Solberg. That steering failure later sent the Norwegian hard into the wall.
There was a carnage in Semifinal 2 as well, where Sebastien Loeb clattered into the side of Andreas Bakkerud and Reinis Nitiss. Bakkerud escaped to a commanding win in that semifinal.
Johan Kristoffersson finished 2nd in the finale with Toomas ‘Topi’ Heikkinen in 3rd position.
Mattias Ekström already won the World Championship at the penultimate round, while Kristoffersson finished 2nd and Bakkerud took the Bronze medal. Solberg finished 4th, just one point behind Kristoffersson and equal on points with Bakkerud, but Bakkerud had more wins.
It was a complete triumph for Team EKS with Ekström and Heikkinen also secured the teams title.
Ekström wasn’t the only fast DTM driver this weekend. Timo Scheider has had a few starts this season, and he made it to his first finale in Rallycross and only missed the podium by one position.
FIA World Rallycross 2017 will start again on the first weekend of April, where all the teams will go to Barcelona in Spain.