After more than a year away from RallyX, Viktor Vranckx made a spectacular comeback behind the wheel of the Hedström Motorsport Peugeot 208. Winning the opening race of the weekend by beating Oliver Eriksson and Fraser McConnell in the final, the Belgian driver has already established himself as a strong contender for Race 2.
Quickly up to speed after setting the fastest time in Free Practice 2 — which secured him pole position for Q1 — Viktor Vranckx wasted no time making his mark on Saturday.
Despite only setting the third fastest time in Q1, the former FIA RX2e champion bounced back by posting the fastest times overall in both Q2 and Q3, ahead of Oliver Eriksson and Tommi Hallman, before confirming his excellent form in both the semi-final and the final. Taking the holeshot off the line, Vranckx never looked back, staying unchallenged by his rivals.
“I knew I had the potential to fight for the Top 5, but honestly, I didn’t expect to win almost everything,” Vranckx admitted, while praising the outstanding work of his team.
“Aside from that Q1 where I made a needless mistake coming out of the first corner, this win feels incredible.”
“The team did an amazing job. As the day progressed, we started to fine-tune an increasingly effective setup. We tried out new adjustments that taught me a lot about the behavior of the Peugeot 208,” he added.
Naturally, Viktor Vranckx heads into Sunday eager to confirm his performance.
“We know starts are crucial here. We had a few small issues with the clutch preload setup, but I’m not particularly worried about that. Plus, we made sure to preserve our tires for Day 2. We had a specific strategy that meant we only used two new tires in the final, which should help us tomorrow. We’ve clearly shown we have the pace, but we’ll need to stay sharp because everyone will step up now that they know the track better. We’ll see how it unfolds, but I genuinely believe we can go for a second win here.”
In the FC2 final, victory went to Casper Jansson, who claimed his second win of the season ahead of McConnell and Olofsson, while Tobias Daarbak followed suit in Supercar Lites, beating Robert Vitols and Damien Meunier.
Already dominant during qualifying, Yorick Maeyninckx clinched his first career win in Open 2WD, ahead of Kristof Bex and Mervin Klaessen.
Meanwhile, the CrossCar category provided non-stop excitement, with a nail-biting duel between Thomas Eek Murstad and Kobe Pauwels, which ultimately swung in Pauwels’ favor after the joker lap. Martin Juga completed the podium with his third consecutive top-three finish.
In the Junior ranks, Carl Svedlund came out on top against Jonas Hegelund Nielsen and Karl Schnack. After leading the standings at the end of qualifying, Alex Anttila narrowly missed out on a podium finish.