World RX - Canada: Second season's victory for Davy Jeanney

Frenchman Davy Jeanney (Team Peugeot-Hansen) is the winner of Canadian round of  World Rallycross Championship which was held at Trois-Rivieres Circuit. It was his second victory in the 2015 season.

In final run, Jeanney who drove a Peugeot 208 WRX, started from pole and successfully defended first place from Finnish driver Toomas Heikkinen in Marklund Motorsport’s VW Polo. In the the third spot was  was Tanner Foust, the American guest driver in second Marklund’s Polo.

Other finalists included two Norwegians— Tommy Rustad (Audi S3, ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport) and Andreas Bakkerud (Ford Fiesta, Olsbergs MSE), while the only Swedish driver in the final was Mattias Ekstrom (Audi S1, EKS RX).

After sharing victories in Friday’s qualifying heats with Petter Solberg, Timmy Hansen dominated in both of Saturday’s qualifying heats. He secured the first place and pole position in his Semi-final group. Mattias Ekstrom was second in both Saturday’s heats and second overall, so he get pole in second SF group.

Among the 12 drivers in the semi-finals there were all regular top scorers (Hansen, Ekstrom, Solberg, Jeanney, Nitiss, Bakkerud, Timerzyanov, Heikkinen, Kristoffersson) along with American guest-driver Tanner Foust, Austrian rally star Manfred Stohl and Tommy Rustad in his debut race for Münnich Motorsport.

The only tragic figure of the last qualifying heat was Anton Marklund, who was 12th after three heats, but crashed in Heat 4 and missed the semi-finals. He was just four points short behind Timerzyanov. Other drivers who didn’t get to semi-finals were Canadian NASCAR stars Patrick Carpentier and LP Dumoulin, WRX rookie Christoph Brugger, Liam Doran, Robin Larsson and Rene Münnich.

The most exciting race on Saturday was the first Semi Final, with Timmy Hansen and Petter Solberg in the front row of the starting grid. They clashed before first turn and after that squeezed Reinis Nitiss between them. All three drivers dropped from the fight for top positions – Hansen and Nitiss retired, Solberg finished the race with a big gap.

A man who benefitted the most from their accident was Tommy Rustad, who retook the lead and defended first place ahead of Heikkinen and Foust. In the second semi final there were no such  big accidents, Davy Jeanney dominated from start to chequered flag. Ekstrom and Bakkerud were second and third respectively.

The same situation played out in the final, with Jeanney starting from pole and leading all six laps. Heikkinen made a good start from fourth to second and stayed there till the end. Tanner Foust and Tommy Rustad had an exciting fight for the third podium spot; the American was more successful and achieved his first World RX podium this year.

Although in the end he didn’t make it to the final, for the first time this season, championship leader Petter Solberg got some valuable points and extended his lead to 46 points ahead second placed Andreas Bakkerud.

Solberg has 176 and Bakkerud 130 points. Kristofferson dropped from second to third, with 124 points. Two Peugeot’s drivers Timmy Hansen and Davy Jeanney are not very far, with 122 and 115 points respectively. Reinis Nitiss is sixth with 109 points.

The next World RX event will be hold at Hell, Norway for two weeks. On the entry list were 46 Supercars, the biggest number so far this season.