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Timmy Hansen dominates Barcelona World Rallycross round for Peugeot

Timmy Hansen completed a weekend of domination at the World Rallycross Championship round at Barcelona by claiming his first victory of the season and maximum points.

Hansen's sixth overall career victory came after leading through the qualifying stages of the Catalan event - held at Barcelona's Formula 1 circuit - with a pair of fastest times in Q3 and Q4 to back up his overnight lead, before leading both his semi-final and the final with conviction to claim victory.

Hansen's younger brother Kevin was second at the end of qualifying, then also won his semi-final to line up alongside his Hansen MJP team mate and sibling on the front row of the final in their pair of ex-works Peugeot 208s.

While the older of the brothers had an untroubled run up front, Kevin Hansen had to defend hard from RX Cartel driver Andreas Bakkerud, who passed Niclas Gronholm at the exit of turn one to run third in the opening laps.

The Hansen drivers split their strategies in the final laps, Kevin taking his compulsory extra route on the fifth lap, before passing Gronholm - who has been held up behind Janis Baumanis after the Finn took an early joker - and Manfred Stohl's Latvian driver.

Timmy Hansen led Bakkerud into the joker on the final lap and while the leader maintained track position, Bakkerud dropped behind Kevin Hansen in the final corners of the race.

Kevin Hansen's second position means the Swede maintains his points lead, while Bakkerud climbed onto the Spanish podium for the third year in succession.

Gronholm wound up fourth, passing Baumanis when the STARD driver took his joker on the final lap, with European Championship graduate Cyril Raymond also climbing a position to finish fifth in his first World RX final.

The French driver made in into the all-important last six by overcoming Gronholm's team-mate Timur Timerzyanov in the semi-finals.

Zdroj: autosport.com