Petter Solberg of Norway is this year’s world champion and enters the record books as the first FIA World Champion in two different disciplines. His score in the Italy Rallycross this weekend secured him the FIA World Rallycross Championship despite Timmy Hansen taking the event victory in the Italian run.
Solberg’s podium position at the Franciacorta International Circuit has seen the PSRX driver stretch his lead at the top of the standings to 60 points with two events still remaining. Topi Heikkinen is currently second behind Solberg in the overall standings but with Solberg having already won four events this season to Heikkinen’s one, Solberg automatically becomes World Champion based on his higher percentage of event victories.
This means that Solberg is now champion in both World RallyCross and World RX.
“When I stopped rallying, I didn’t know what to do and then IMG took on rallycross and brought it to an amazing level so now it seemed like the right choice,” Solberg said. ” I broke the right-rear suspension in the final and my spotter was shouting on the radio that I needed to calm down because all I needed to do was get to the podium and I would win the Championship.”
Third position this weekend was taken by Ford’s Ricahrd Goransson in his Supercar debut. The multiple Swedish Touring Car Champion had an impressive run in Italy and beat out 37 other drivers for the podium. “This has been my first ever Supercar event and I would have been happy to have made the semi-finals, never mind second overall. I kept out of trouble in the final and that’s what led to this result.”
