Summarize

World RX title going down to the wire

Cape Town’s SABAT Rallycross of South Africa moved up a gear as the third and fourth and final qualifying sessions went down Sunday as a cloudy morning started to clear at Killarney International Raceway. The action led up to an epic four-car 'mini final' qualifying heat between the top four qualifiers, title rivals, Peugeot Hansen brothers Timmy and Kevin and Andreas Bakkerud (Audi) with wildcard Niclas Grönholm's Hyundai thrown in for good measure.

The on form Gronholm leapt into an early lead from a duelling Timmy Hansen and Bakkerud, who took the Joker on the first lap, after ending up behind Gronholm and Timmy Hansen, with Timmy taking the long way around the following lap to stay ahead of his title rival. Gronholm cleared off up front to take the win from Timmy, Bakkerud and Kevin Hansen.

Grönholm also walked away with top paying 16 championship points for winning the mini qualifying championship, from Timmy Hansen, Bakkerud and Kevin Hansen, subject to any official action. WHich meansTimmy Hansen opened his overall 2019 FIA World Rally Championship points advantage over Bakkerud to all of two, with Kevin also just 10 points behind his brother and only this afternoon's Semi Finals and Final left to run.

The third qualifying session had gone more or less to form Sunday morning as title fighters Timmy Hansen (Peugeot), Andreas Bakkerud (Audi) and Finn Niclas Gronholm (Hyundai) took their heat wins in the three 5-car races. Hansen stormed to his win over brother Kenny to move ahead of Gronholm and 12 ahead of Bakkerud in the all important qualifying points table, as the Norwegian also delivered a crushing performance in his heat .

Gronholm had the most difficult run in Round 3 as he jumped the start of his heat, which forced him to take a second trip around the longer Joker lap that all drivers have to take once in each heat. He somehow still managed to end up winning that race to end up fourth of all drivers in that heat, behind the third title contender, younger Hansen brother Kevin. Gronholm had led the qualifying points race after winning Saturday’s first and second heats as Bakkerud and Timmy Hansen also took a heat a piece, to run second and fourth each side of Kevin Hansen.

The final heat was back to four races of four cars each after Liam Doran's Audi absent from heat 3 was back in action and  the field was back to 16 cars and Doran took an easy heat 4 win after missing his third round race, before Timo Scheider (Seat) and a fighting Guerlain Chicherit took their heats leaving an epic final qualifying heat to go down between the three title leaders, the Hansens and Bakkerud and Gronholm who was out to beat them all...

With qualifying over and its points allocated, it is now down to two rapid-fire six-car Semi Finals starting 15h00 Sunday afternoon, with the top three from each of those races going through to the Final shortly thereafter, which is scored on an 8-5-4-3-2-1 basis. 

Tickets remain available at www.quicket.co.za or at the Killarney gate. If you are not able to be there, follow the action live from Cape Town at www.fiaworldrallycross.com/live

ENDS

Issued on behalf of SABAT World Rallycross SA

What:SABAT World Rallycross of South Africa Qualifying Report
Where:Killarney International Raceway, Cape Town
When:Sunday 10 November 2019
Community:International

For further information please contact pieter@pietercronje.com

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