The pairing formed by Sebastien Loeb and Cristina Gutierrez had set the best time in Q1 and was also repeated in the second round.
An update to the rules required women to open the dance, so Gutierrez was the first to get behind the wheel, while the X44 team was the seventh to descend on the track built at the Bovington military base.
Gutierrez finished the two laps at her disposal about 1 “5 below the best time of the session, before handing over the wheel to Loeb.
The nine-time world champion therefore recovered eight tenths of a second in the first sector alone, although he then lost six in the super sector that awards the points. In any case, at the end of his run, the sum of his times and that of his crew mate created a cushion of 4 “11 on the pursuers.
Adding up the times in Q1, an overall time of 18’34 “778 emerged, thanks to which they definitely got the better of their rivals in Rosberg X Racing, spaced a good nine seconds apart.
The two teams were separated by 16 points on the eve of this final round and the X44 seemed to be able to narrow this gap based on the qualifying results. However, Johan Kristofferson was the fastest in the super sector which is worth 5 points, so this allowed the RXR riders to even gain a length.
Molly Taylor, Johan Kristoffersson, Rosberg X Racing
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Despite the very shrewd driving of Molly Taylor, who was already 10 “behind when she gave up the wheel, the RXR managed to close in second place in the cumulative ranking, narrowing the attack of Acciona and Carlos Sainz by a whisker. which occupy the third position.
The revelation of the day, however, were the returning Jamie Chadwick and the South African Lance Woolridge, who achieved fourth place for Veloce Racing. A result which, however, was also favored by the mistakes made and the problems suffered by the competition.
For example, Jutta Kleinschmidt ran into a 5 “penalty for taking the wrong turn at a crossroads and missing a waypoint. The hand of the race direction was not too heavy, however, as the 2001 Dakar winner made a path. noticeably longer and slower.
Jenson Button’s JBXE was slowed by a brake problem in Q1, while it ran into a penalty in Q2. It went even worse at Andretti United, with Timmy Hansen running off the track and stuck his car between two trees, losing over 19 “before being able to resume his race. A mistake that sent the team plunging to seventh. place.
Reliability problems for Chip Ganassi Racing, which had already had to deal with a rather slow driver change, but got the worst of it when Kyle Leduc suffered the breakdown of the power steering, closing with a time 25 “slower than the one achieved in Q1.
Xite Energy Racing, on the other hand, still paid the consequences of the 17 “penalties remedied in Q1 for having knocked down the flag of a waypoint and for having exceeded the speed limit in the pitlane.
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