{"id":22879,"date":"2024-08-19T00:22:42","date_gmt":"2024-08-18T22:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/?p=22879"},"modified":"2024-08-19T13:16:18","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T11:16:18","slug":"kristoffersson-races-clear-of-rivals-with-mettet-masterclass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/en\/kristoffersson-races-clear-of-rivals-with-mettet-masterclass\/","title":{"rendered":"Kristoffersson races clear of rivals with Mettet masterclass"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johan Kristoffersson produced a peerless performance to secure a 44th<\/sup> career triumph in the FIA World Rallycross Championship at Mettet in Belgium today (18 August), as the multiple world champion sped further clear of his adversaries in the inaugural \u2018Battle of Technologies\u2019.<\/p>\n

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Following Saturday\u2019s disappointment \u2013 when a late puncture denied him a podium finish around the Circuit Jules Tacheny \u2013 Kristoffersson entered the second day of World RX of Benelux eager to bounce back. Behind the wheel of his sustainably-fuelled, combustion-engined Volkswagen Polo KMS 601 RX, he did so in style.<\/p>\n

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Having fought his way to victory in both of his heat races \u2013 despite not exiting Turn One in the lead on either occasion \u2013 the KMS – HORSE Powertrain star duly lined up on pole position for the opening semi-final, which he controlled from lights-to-flag.<\/p>\n

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The Swede subsequently produced a repeat display in the final, fending off a fast-starting Niclas Gr\u00f6nholm into the first corner and thereafter never looking back as he crossed the finish line almost five seconds clear of his closest pursuer. His fourth win from six rounds in 2024 increases his advantage at the summit of the Drivers\u2019 standings to 39 points.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI must say a big \u2018thank you\u2019 to the team,\u201d Kristoffersson reflected. \u201cThey gave us a great car and we were consistently quick, and today, we managed to pull everything together. I\u2019m very happy, and it was nice to have OC [Veiby \u2013 team-mate] on the podium as well collecting more important points towards the championship. That said, our competitors are doing a good job too and the times got increasingly tight, so we have to keep pushing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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If Kristoffersson\u2019s path to the top step of the podium in the final was relatively serene, the fight behind the championship leader was fierce. Kevin Hansen emerged on top of that particular tussle to reach the rostrum for the second time this weekend, despite finding the rear of his electric Peugeot 208 RX1e lifted up into the air in Turn One by Veiby\u2019s VW, which had itself been briefly airborne shortly after the start.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The battle-scarred Hansen narrowly pipped Veiby to the runner-up spoils, the Swede responding to the Norwegian\u2019s lap two joker by following suit next time around and chopping across the nose of his VW rival on the blast towards the first corner to cement second place.<\/p>\n

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Veiby wound up barely half-a-second further back in third \u2013 posting the race\u2019s fastest lap, as he had done 24 hours earlier \u2013 with Gr\u00f6nholm and Saturday winner Timmy Hansen similarly in hot pursuit, the quartet blanketed by less than three-quarters-of-a-second at the chequered flag in a breathless finish.<\/p>\n

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Klara Andersson completed the finalists in sixth in the second CE Dealer Team by Volvo Construction Equipment entry, while the support series saw victories for home hero Kobe Pauwels in RX2e \u2013 on the Belgian\u2019s rallycross return \u2013 championship leader Patrick O\u2019Donovan in Euro RX1 and Jo\u00e3o Ribeiro in Euro RX3.<\/p>\n

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World RX\u2019s \u2018Battle of Technologies\u2019 will continue at Montalegre in Portugal on 7-8 September.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FINAL RESULT: WORLD RX<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1.\u202fJohan KRISTOFFERSSON<\/strong>\u202f(SWE)\u202fKMS – Horse Powertrain<\/strong>\u202f(ICE)<\/strong>\u202f5 laps<\/p>\n

2.\u202fKevin HANSEN<\/strong>\u202f(SWE)\u202fHansen World RX Team (EV) <\/strong>+ 4.712s<\/p>\n

3.\u202fOle Christian VEIBY<\/strong>\u202f(NOR)\u202fKMS – Horse Powertrain<\/strong>\u202f(ICE)<\/strong>\u202f+ 4.969s<\/p>\n

4. Niclas GR\u00d6NHOLM<\/strong> (FIN)\u202fCE Dealer Team (EV)\u202f<\/strong>+ 5.266s<\/p>\n

5.\u202fTimmy HANSEN<\/strong>\u202f(SWE)\u202fHansen World RX Team (EV)\u202f<\/strong>+ 5.451s<\/p>\n

6.\u202fKlara ANDERSSON<\/strong>\u202f(SWE)\u202fCE Dealer Team (EV)\u202f<\/strong>+ 10.121s<\/p>\n

Full results for all categories can be found at\u202fwww.fiaworldrallycross.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johan Kristoffersson produced a peerless performance to secure a 44th career triumph in the FIA World Rallycross Championship at Mettet in Belgium today (18 August), as the multiple world champion sped further clear of his adversaries in the inaugural \u2018Battle of Technologies\u2019.   Following Saturday\u2019s disappointment \u2013 when a late puncture denied him a podium… View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":22872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22879"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22895,"href":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22879\/revisions\/22895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mettet-xp.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}