After Team Peugeot Hansen’s second place at Montalegre, Portugal, two weeks ago, Sébastien Loeb and Timmy Hansen are looking forward to entertaining the expected 75,000 spectators packed into the Stadium section of Germany’s Hockenheimring, home of Round 3 of the 2017 FIA World Rallycross Championship.
- The increasingly popular FIA World Rallycross Championship shares the bill at Hockenheim with Germany’s crowd-pulling DTM series. The discipline’s usual timetable has consequently been modified, with qualifying due to start on Friday, with the final race scheduled for late Sunday morning.
- Aware that there is no room for easing up given the competitiveness of this year’s world championship, Team Peugeot Hansen travelled to Höljes, Sweden, immediately after its podium finish at Montalegre for further development work on the PEUGEOT 208 WRX 2017!
Quote, unquote…
Kenneth Hansen (Team Principal)
“Hockenheim is more like Barcelona than Montalegre in the sense that it uses a portion of a Formula 1 track converted for rallycross use. This year, the German organisers have modified the joker lap which was actually faster than the normal track in 2016. It’s a circuit our drivers enjoy and we go there intent on playing another front-running role.”
Sébastien Loeb (driver, PEUGEOT 208 WRX #9)
“It’s always nice to compete on part of an F1 circuit in front of such big crowds. The surface is good but the joker lap didn’t serve any real purpose last year. That was a problem because you couldn’t use it to either pull out a gap or pass anyone, not to mention the fact that there’s an extremely tight hairpin which breaks the rhythm somewhat.”
Timmy Hansen (driver, PEUGEOT 208 WRX #21)
“I’ve got plenty of good memories of Hockenheim. It’s where I scored my first win when I used to race single-seaters in Formula BMW. Last year, the team performed a miracle there by enabling me to take part in the fourth qualifying heat after my car caught fire in Q3.”
Kevin Hansen (driver, PEUGEOT 208 WRX #71)
“My result at Hockenheim last year was a big disappointment for me. I was the first to take to go out for the warm-up session and I got caught out by the conditions. That ruined the rest of my weekend. It’s always a highly selective venue and this time I want to put in a strong performance there.”
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS AFTER TWO ROUNDS
Drivers’ standings
1. Mattias Ekström (Audi S1), 58 points
2. Johan Kristoffersson (Volkswagen Polo GTI), 44 points
3. Petter Solberg (Volkswagen Polo GTI), 42 points
4. Andreas Bakkerud (Ford Focus RS), 30 points
5. Timo Scheider (Ford Fiesta), 28 points
6. Sébastien Loeb (PEUGEOT 208 WRX), 26 points
7. Reiniss Nitis (Audi S1), 26 points
8. Timmy Hansen (PEUGEOT 208 WRX), 23 points
9. Kevin Hansen (PEUGEOT 208 WRX), 21 points
10. Toomas Heikkinen (Audi S1), 19 points
