Hansen driver Timerzyanov third in Norway and leads the Championship

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Hansen driver Timerzyanov third in Norway and leads the Championship

Tuesday, 28. 06. 2011 - 17:17, Daniel Mandzi

The fourth round of the FIA European Championships for Rallycross Drivers brought further success for the Citroën drivers at Kenneth Hansen Motorsport, Russian Timur Timerzyanov battling his way through to third place via victory in the B final. The only driver to have placed in the A final in all four rounds to date, the podium finish gives Timerzyanov the championship points lead, the first Russian driver ever to lead the series.

In what is developing into one of most competitive and closely fought championships of recent years, Hansen now has two drivers in the top six of the Supercar championship while Super1600 runner Johan Larsson put in a strong performance with his Citroën C2, placing fifth in the A final.

The fourth round of the championship, run on the Lånkebanen near the village of Hell in central Norway, presented a new challenge for almost all competitors in the championship, this being the first time it had hosted a European championship event.

Problems in the first day of the event left British driver Liam Doran on the back foot.

- It's one of those weekends that I don't want to have again. I had a bad first day and that put the pressure on, then I made a small mistake in the second heat on Sunday morning and that really hurt my chances, said Doran
- I won the C final and I'm happy with my pace in the event in the B final things didn't work out and that was the end of the road. I've worked hard in the last few weeks to drive more smoothly and that was good here, but I need to get a little more aggression into that style now. I wanted to do better here but ninth place is not a disaster and I'm still in the top six of the championship - but I need to pull something out of the bag next week.

While Doran's run ended in the B final, Timerzyanov's fortune turned around in that race, the Russian winning and going into the A final. The American Tanner Foust had a crash that stopped the race, Timerzyanov made a decisive move in the restart.
- My second start was not perfect and I saw Mats Lysen going into the Joker and rest staying on the main track so I followed Mats and then had some really good laps, said Timerzyanov
- I might have been closer to [second placed] Sverre Isachsen at the end, but there was a big hole in the gravel section and I hit that one lap, it was nearly a crash so I was lucky to finish without damage to the car. I did not expect to be leading the championship, this is supposed to be a learning year for me, so this is a very good day.

Larsson's fifth place in the Norwegian event brought the Swedish driver up from seventh to fourth place in the Super1600 championship, the Citroën C2 driver doing a solid job and bringing himself back into the leading championship places ahead of his home round of the championship in Sweden next weekend (July 1-3).

The Swedish event, at Höljes, will see the Kenneth Hansen Motorsport team grow to four cars as team boss Kenneth Hansen gives his new Citroën DS3 Supercar its debut. "We have the last few jobs to finish on the new car and the plan is to test on Wednesday and then go to Höljes for the press day on Thursday. If looks are anything to go by the car will be very good, I think it's the best we have ever built," said Hansen who has not raced since the final round of the 2010 championship last September.

Results
Supercar:

1 Mats Lysen (N)
2 Sverr Isachsen (N)
3 Timur Timerzyanov (RUS)
4 Stig Olov Walfridson (S)
5 Toomas Heikkinen (FIN)
6 Tanner Foust (USA)