Oliver Eriksson put one hand on the RallyX Nordic title with a dominant run to victory in the Supercar class at Nysum, as closest rival Fraser McConnell retired from the final with a technical issue.
World Rallycross Championship points leader Johan Kristoffersson is absent from the RX Nordic season finale, and was the series leader prior to the Danish doube-header.
A clean sweep of qualifying, his semifinal and the final ensured Eriksson has already surpassed Kristofferson’s points total.
McConnell had been Olsbergs MSE team-mate Eriksson’s closest challenger on pace and in the overall standings during Saturday.
But when McConnell’s Ford Fiesta snapped left under braking for turn four on the opening lap of the final, he was forced to pull off and retire from second place, handing Eriksson a comfortable lead and a nearly unassailable 19-point advantage over McConnell in the title race.
Two corners earlier McConnell had made contact with Ulrik Linnemann as the pair went side-by-side into turn two, with McConnell sticking his car around the outside of Linnemann’s Fiesta.
Ben-Philip Gundersen had been the big loser from the opening exchanges by dropping from second to fourth, the JC Raceteknik Audi being passed by both Linnemann and McConell at the start.
Thanks to McConnell’s retirement and a late joker strategy, Gundersen climbed back to second place by the penultimate lap, taking the position back from Linnemann.
Despite his early run near the front Linnemann was lucky to hold on to third place, as he resisted late pressure from Stene Johansen in another Fiesta.
Linus Westman had also made the final at the expense of the last driver mathematically in contention for the Supercar title heading to Nysum, Anders Michalak. A technical issue forced him to retire a lap after McConnell.
Former World RX driver Guillaume De Ridder won on his return to rallycross in the Supercar Lites category, giving him a five-point advantage over Henrik Krogstad in the RX2 title battle.
This weekend Supercar Lites races count towards both RX Nordic’s Lites championship, which Nysum counts as rounds four and five, while also making up the entire RX2 schedule across its two races.
That puts De Ridder in pole position for a one-round prize drive in the new eRX2 series that will launch next year, though Krogstad’s second place in the final has boosted his odds of winning the RX Nordic Lites title.
Simon Olofsson had been the pacesetter early on as top qualifer and winning his semifinal, then got the best start in the final with De Ridder behind.
Photo: #YellowSquad / Sanna Krantz
Krogstad clipped the back of De Ridder into turn one while defending from Linus Östlund on his outside and went airborne, but caught the subsequent oversteer moment and held third.
An early joker by De Ridder released Krogstad to chase after Olofsson and a strong run in the slipstream towards turn two allowed Krogstad to pull alongside and attempt a pass for the lead.
Olofsson’s late attempt to block the pass put himself into a half-spin and damaged his car sufficiently to lead to retirement.
Behind De Ridder and Krogstad, Jesse Kallio finished in third to cap a difficult day, in which he finished last of the four drivers in the Lites title fight in qualifying. Östlund, who was the last of the championship quartet, finished fourth, ahead of Jimmie Walfridsson.
Krogstad has a five point advantage over Östlund in the Lites standings with only tomorrow’s final round to go. Kallio is six points off the top and Olofsson is seven behind the leader.
World RX frontrunner Kevin Hansen made his first CrossCar appearance since 2018 with his family’s LifeLive Nordic team, working on the development of its TN5 chassis.
Hansen won his Q2 race but an outside grid slot combined with track evolution going against him in Q3 meant he missed out on a semi-final slot by only one place.
With joint points leader Patrik Hallberg absent, Isak Reiersen arrived at Nysum as the best-placed driver in title race for the entry-level CrossCar class.
But Saturday was a nightmare for Reiersen; he dug himself out of a hole by going second in Q3 to scrape into the semifinals at the last minute, then got disqualified from third place in his semi for pushing.
Max Rundberg took advantage and though he could only manage fourth in the final, takes a 12-point lead over Reiersen into Sunday’s title decider.
Danish pairing Søren Jelsbak and Nicklas Jensen were the dominant forces in CrossCar; Jensen topped qualifying but was eliminated in his semifinal, while Jelsbak went on to score a dominant win in the final.
Erik Andersson took his first CrossCar Junior win of the year and with it the championship lead, picking up a maximum score of 24 points after finishing as top qualifier.
Alex Gustafsson had been atop the stanings since the Höljes season opener, but a stall while taking his joker lap dropped him to last, and he is now two points behind Andersson in the standings.
Raoul Dahlqvist, Rasmuss Persson and Lukas Andersson are all still in the Junior title fight, less than 10 points behind Erik Andersson.
