Sebastien Loeb is a happy man today after winning the FIA World Rallycross of Latvia, his first win ever in World RX. The Frenchman driving a Peugeot 208 WRX for Team Peugeot Hansen has now become the first driver to win events in three different FIA championships, i.e. WRC, WTCC and now World RX.
Speaking about his win today, Loeb said: “This feels really, really great. I’m really happy for my team and especially for my chief mechanic [Martins] who is from Latvia. My goal at the start of this year was to win in RX and I always knew that would be a big challenge in my first year. For the last couple of events, however, I have felt like I was getting closer and today the hard work has paid off.”
Championship leader Mattias Ekstrom who has been a roll in his career this year finished second to extend his lead in the standings. Driving the EKS Audi S1 Supercar, his podium finished ensured that the team still leads the championship in the team’s division. Last weekend, Ekstrom won the DTM race of Hungary therefore making his victory in Latvia a back-to-back win in two different racing series.
Third place went to Timmy Hansen who made it a double podium for Team Peugeot Hansen. Defending champion Petter Solberg had a tough weekend after getting disqualified for making contact with Ekstrom. This was the first time he failed to make it to the semi finals. As a result, the world champion finished in 17th place and lost second place on the standings to Johan Kristoffersson.
Andreas Bakkerud from Hoonigan Racing Division finished the event in fourth leading the VW Polo RX of Kristoffersson and Timur Timerzyanov. The latter retired during the finals after making contact with the wall. Ken Block also had a challenging weekend and never made it past Q4 where he retired his Ford Focus RS RX.
In two week’s time the drivers will head over to Estering in Germany for the penultimate round of the season.
