When Andreas Mikkelsen dumped his Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo into a concrete barrier inside Athens’ Olympic Stadium, his hopes of retaining the WRC2 title looked to be over. The championship race had swung heavily in favor of Kajetan Kajetanowicz; he had plenty of rallies left to catch and overtake Mikkelsen’s points tally.
Except there was an unexpected plot twist. Emil Lindholm went on to dominate in Greece. Suddenly, there was a glimmer of hope – Kajetanowicz might not have it all his own way.
On Monday morning, there was confirmation that the WRC2 title race wouldn’t end with one title contender chasing an absent rival, with Mikkelsen having hit his maximum quota of seven rallies for the season.
Lindholm’s name popped up on the Rally Japan entry list alongside Kajetanowicz. WRC2 is going down to the wire – potentially even with a winner-takes-all fight, depending on what happens in Spain this week.
“Once it became evident that we are honestly and actually in the title fight – like when you discount the points and take the net point decision now – many guys and a lot of companies were happy to give us a bit of support to really be able to fight for the title,” Lindholm told DirtFish.
“I guess I knew it wouldn’t be easy but, then again, I also said before that if we won’t be able to make it happen now, we’ll never be able to.”
Kajetanowicz being bested by Hayden Paddon in New Zealand has also changed the playing field.
When Lindholm talks about the net points, dropped scores are only part of the equation. There’s also the points ceiling – the maximum number of points each driver can accrue if they picked up perfect scores in Spain and Japan, then discounting their mandatory dropped score.
Until now Kajetanowicz always had that ace card up his sleeve. His ceiling had always been the tallest.
Not anymore.
| Pos | Driver | Rallies | Total | Ceiling |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andreas Mikkelsen | 7/7 | 109 | 109 |
| 2 | Kajetan Kajetanowicz | 5/7 | 96 | 142 |
| 3 | Emil Lindholm | 5/7 | 89 | 145 |
Lindholm is suddenly in a great position. If he can score 24 points in the next two events he’ll surpass Mikkelsen – and from there he just needs to park himself in front of his fellow Škoda rival to get the job done.
“It obviously depends on how Spain goes but our plan is to try to stay ahead of Kajto in both rallies and as long as we do that, it should be enough,” Lindholm points out.
There’s another reason Lindholm can rest easy and not get too hung up on his unexpected title tilt. A key objective for his season is already checked off thanks to the Rally Japan entry list being released – Chris Ingram’s expected absence confirmed him as WRC2 Junior champion.
It might be easy to dismiss that success as a mere box tick on the way to the more important prize. But Lindholm doesn’t see it that way.
“It does matter,” he asserts. When we started the season our number one target was to be WRC2 Junior champion and now we are.
“So, of course, it makes me happy and somehow takes some stress away because already I can say the season has been sort of how we wanted it to be, or even better, because we are actually in the fight for the proper WRC2 title. So it does make difference.”
Crucially, it also made it much easier to secure the funds for the long trek to the season finale on the other side of the world.
“I’m sure also that was coming made it easier to bargain for some financing for Japan,” Lindholm added.
Add all that together and Lindholm isn’t stressing about suddenly being thrust into the middle of a potentially career-changing title battle. He knows the odds are good – now it’s just about delivering when it matters.
“Honestly, I’m not too worried,” he said. “As long as we just keep on doing what we’ve done and somehow also try to enjoy ourselves at the same time…basically we can’t do more than that. We can only do our best.
“I think it’s enough, I hope it’s enough, but if it isn’t, it wasn’t meant to be.”
