WHAT THE TEAMS SAID - WORLD RX OF FINLAND
Tuesday 1st of September 2020
Rounds three and four of the 2020 FIA World Rallycross Championship were held at the Kouvola Circuit in Finland, with dry conditions on Saturday turning to wet on Sunday as Sweden's Johan Kristoffersson and home hero Niclas Gronholm took a win each.
Here's what the teams had to say about their weekends in Kouvola:
GRX Taneco: Niclas Gronholm P4 / P1, Timur Timerzyanov P10 / P3, Juha Rytkonen P2 / P8
Marcus Gronholm (Team Principal): "Round four was a fantastic day for us as a team. We almost had all three cars in the final, but got unlucky with a penalty for Juha Rytkonen. Everyone in the team did their maximum and to have two drivers – Niclas and Timur – on the podium makes me very happy. I could not have asked for more."
KYB Team JC: Robin Larsson P8 / P10, Mattias Ekstrom P7 / P2
Joel Christoffersson (Team Principal): "It was a tough weekend, and the whole team worked hard to find the pace. In the final on Sunday, Niclas Gronholm's speed was not the fastest and we pushed him for the win, but it wasn't enough. But, when Mattias took his joker lap, he came out second in front of Johan Kristoffersson, which we were a little surprised by to be honest because on the times it looked too tight. Second was good though, and Robin would also have been in the final, which he really deserved after making many starts from the outside of the grid and having traffic and other issues, until his problem in the semi. The question I keep getting asked is about the future of Mattias in the team. It would be brilliant if he continued with KYB Team JC, but it also looks tough for him, both with budget and other commitments, so we will have to see. We have a week or so to find a solution for Riga, otherwise we need to find an alternative."
Kristoffersson Motorsport: Johan Kristoffersson P1 / P4
Johan Kristoffersson: "I have lost only nine points from four races. That's really satisfying. We feel more into it now than in Holjes. The speed is better and the overall feeling as well. I have repeatedly said that you need to score points on an even basis this year. That was in my mind for the whole day on Saturday, all the way through the final. I practiced start procedures a lot in 2017 and 2018 and I would like to say that they are just as good now as at the end of 2018. I didn't get through the first corner in the final on Sunday as I would have hoped for. The joker lap is so short here, and I had so much mud on the windscreen so I didn't nail it in the final."
GCK Bilstein: Anton Marklund P12 / P11
Anton Marklund: "The speed we showed throughout the warm-up on Sunday morning was really promising for the rest of the day - the car was working really well and we were the quickest on the track. Unfortunately, we lost some pace and definitely lost capacity off the start line due to lack of grip. We need to do a thorough analysis now to understand why the speed differed so much to this morning's, so a lot of work ahead. We bring the great pace we've shown with us and just have to learn from the challenges to come back better in Riga. It's disappointing for me to not be able to bring the best results back to the team as the mechanics have worked super hard over the last couple of weeks to get us out on the track every time no matter the challenges and tight turnaround time."
Team Hansen: Timmy Hansen P3 / P5, Kevin Hansen P6 / P7
Kenneth Hansen (Team Principal): "We made some big improvements on Sunday and I feel we learned a lot, even though the results were still a bit mixed. It was very tight between the drivers at the front and while our starts were improving, it wasn't by enough. But we're going in the right direction, both with the chassis and with the starts. We're already four rounds into the season now so perhaps that improvement hasn't come as quickly as we'd hoped, but that's motorsport, sometimes you need to work to catch up a little bit. The circumstances in round four were particularly difficult for us because of how little grip there was, especially on the start line. But we'll use this knowledge to continue improving the car and try to come back stronger in Latvia."
Monster Energy GCK RX Cartel: Andreas Bakkerud P9 / P6, Liam Doran NC / 14
Andreas Bakkerud: "Overall, we've made many, many steps in the right direction - we didn't have any big technical issues but the super tricky conditions impacted our overall performance. We're proud to have put the car into the final to fight against 5 top drivers and this is where I think we should play all the time. Considering the quickly changing conditions, I think we tactically played our cards right but had some small issues in the semi-finals and finals, which we need to analyse further and work on ahead of Riga. I have full confidence that we will be spraying champagne at the end of the day there."
ALL-INKL.COM Muennich Motorsport: Timo Scheider P5 / P9, Rene Muennich P16 / P19
Timo Scheider: "We were again in the final with another strong result with P5 on Saturday. Sunday was a mega hard day, with many important experiences in the rain for us. P5 in the semi-finals was the maximum. It's good to see that after round four we can say that we are better than 2019 in all conditions!"
Unkorrupted: Guerlain Chicherit P14 / P15, Kevin Abbring P17 / P13
Kevin Abbring: "We've done so many things since Sweden and sometimes it's hard to know what works and what doesn't but I think in the end, we're a step closer to what it is that the car is lacking. If you look at Q2 [in round four], the car gave me a lot of confidence, a really good start and a nice send into turn 1, so that's positive. In Q3 in the rain, we didn't quite hit the right pace on the tarmac but on the gravel, I was one of the strongest in the sector. The overall results may not seem like that yet but we're getting there."
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