At the Speedmachine Festival from Silverstone

Last Bank Holiday weekend I was at the Speedmachine Festival to watch the 4th round of 2018 FIA World Rallycross Championship. As I said last time it was the first time I’d been to a World RX event and I thoroughly enjoyed it. On and off the track entertainment put a smile on my face and I was impressed with the way the event went for the 27,000 people who attended. Not bad for a first time event.

I’ll talk about the off track stuff first. Going as a fan, I have to say that there was brilliant work from all of the helpers and security people at Silverstone who were very clearly visible to help out and point out where things were. It was particularly helpful when you had rallycross cars travelling to their garage areas through the paddock which meant that everyone had to get out-of-the-way so we didn’t get run over by someone like Mattias Ekstrom. They would blow whistles to say that a car was coming and everyone quickly moved.

The best thing was how close to the cars you could get. You could go into the paddock and stand just centimetres away from the cars which were getting repaired or cleaned in their garages. There aren’t too many forms of motorsport were you’re within touching distance of the actual racing cars without paying extra. You could see the floor, the brakes, the suspension, every big and small detail of the cars. The teams didn’t care that people would gather round to watch. They didn’t make a human wall or barricade the cars off completely. It’s just brilliant access for all of the fans. Mechanics would have a chat with you and give out stickers to some kids; it was just amazing to see that they are so friendly and open for an FIA championship remember. You have to love rallycross for the fan access that you get.

One of the first things that struck me is that you could actually go on the Silverstone track, well the home straight anyway. You could also go into the pitlane which is just impossible to do for any other event because they will obviously be using the main track but because the rallycross track was on the infield, you had this amazing access. The Silverstone Wing was open to the fans as well and in there you could have a go on Dirt 4, try out some challenges, remote-controlled car racing, as well as looking at a few F1 cars and some supercars.

All day long there were Jaguars taking people for a spin (quite literally) towards the first straight of the Silverstone track. I didn’t have a ride myself because the queues were pretty big but it must have been quite a thrill to accelerate so quickly and do some doughnuts whilst trying not to make a mess of yourself that all of this was completely out of your control.

There was also your lots of food stores and merchandise to buy as well as music in the evening and night for those who like concerts and stuff. It was nice to see a big range of age groups with lots of die-hard rallycross fans and young kids with their parents and grandparents. Having the event on a bank holiday weekend does help and it’s good to see that rallycross can appeal to younger people, although I do think for many that it was more of a day out.

Something else unique is that you had drivers walking through the paddock and even using the same facilities as us fans! Timmy Hansen walked in the opposite direction of me as he came out of the building and I was just so surprised. The two-time world rally champion Marcus Gronholm was standing casually amongst the fans and getting selfies and autographs from people who knew him. During the semi-finals, Andrew Jordan and a few of his mates rocked up and sat in the grandstands a couple of rows away from me. Sadly he couldn’t get through the qualifying stages to the semi-final but it’s great to see him sit in the grandstands with hundreds of normal people around him. I think he gave the people sat right next to him a surprise!

Overall, as an event it was pretty successful and I would recommend to anyone that you should go and watch because it is highly entertaining. You can see the whole track and therefore it’s quite easy to understand what’s going on in all of the races. The last corners joker lap makes for some very exciting finishes right in front of you so the crowd really make some noise when there’s a close joker lap merge or an overtake or a rollover, of which there were a few over the weekend.

The only thing I would say is that there should be an additional grandstand near the jump, on the other side of the circuit, because having one grandstand meant that it could get a bit packed at times and if there are more people, rather than having them down on ground level, there should be room for them to sit in a grandstand with a good view of everything.

Onto the racing action and it was just as it has been all season long. Very exciting with some close battles all round. The eventual winner Johan Kristoffersson was very lucky that he hit the barrier so hard in his semi-final that it caused it to go onto the track and force a red flag. Staggeringly, he didn’t have much damage and was able to take the restart and take his semi-final win whilst his teammate Petter Solberg did not finish after sustaining too much damage in the clash with Kristoffersson. It was a racing incident in my opinion and it all happened so quickly. Solberg perhaps braked a tad too early or maybe Kristoffersson misjudged how close he was to Solberg and braked a bit too late.

Timmy Hansen’s bad luck continued as he didn’t finish his semi-final when he was definitely going to get to the final. He’s so aggressive and has had so much bad fortune in the important moments this year. The young Swede could be leading the championship without so much bad luck, but hey that’s rallycross. His Peugeot teammate Sebastien Loeb went on the win that semi-final but a terrible start in the final meant that he couldn’t challenge Kristoffersson in the final. He recovered well to get onto the podium.

Kristoffersson was slightly fortunate again in the final thanks to Loeb’s bad start but also because Audi got the joker lap tactics wrong. They should have “jokered” Andreas Bakkerud (who was right behind him) 1-2 laps earlier because he was faster than Johan in the first half of the race. But, Kristoffersson did have some mighty speed and got faster and faster as the final went on and he showed last weekend why he’s the champion.

His bad days aren’t that bad. He nearly always gets to the final and if you get to the final at every event then you’ll have a really good chance of winning the championship. The 29-year-old is so consistent and he’ll probably need some bad luck to lose his championship lead.

An advantage he had is that the 5 drivers closest to him are taking points away from each other in every race. While he’s collecting a good amount of points consistently, his rivals are sometimes ahead of him and sometimes behind him but they’re much more up and down. Behind Kristoffersson, it’s a bit like BTCC at the moment were there’s no clear threat and everyone is landing in top of each other rather than one person taking the fight to Kristoffersson.

Championship Standings

Johan Kristoffersson – 105

Sebastien Loeb – 91

Andreas Bakkerud – 83

Petter Solberg – 80

Mattias Ekstrom – 80

Timmy Hansen – 71

Hell, yes you saw it correctly, in Norway is next weekend which is a proper rough and tough rallycross track, similar to Montelegre in Portugal earlier this season. I can’t wait for that and how the season pans out. Can anyone stop the mighty Kristoffersson?

For more rallycross opinion, listen to the latest edition of Monday Motorsport as Phil Kinch tells Lester Forbes his views on last weekend’s Silverstone event and what to expect in Hell.