Barcelona World RX: Timmy Hansen takes overnight lead

At the Barcelona circuit where Hansen retired from the lead of semi-final stages 12 months ago, the Swede set the fastest time in both Q1 and Q2 to lead the order at the close of play on Saturday.

Hansen leapfrogged Guerlain Chicherit in his Q1 race having backed out of the first corner scrum and cut to the inside of the left-hander to take track position from Niclas Gronholm, then led the last race of the day in Q2 from lights-to-flag in commanding fashion.

With a succession of fastest laps of the event so far, Hansen led younger brother and teammate Kevin Hansen to the line, the round one winner and points leader holding second overnight.

Kevin Hansen was helped by a re-started race in Q1. After initially losing out to Cyril Raymond at the start in the first running of the encounter and dropping time, he led the re-run from start to finish. He then took an early joker in Q2 and climbed back up the order.

Third in both sessions, thanks to a race victory in Q1 and following Timmy Hansen throughout the Q2 race, only to be passed by Kevin Hansen after his lap four joker, was triple European Rallycross Champion Timur Timeryzanov in a return to form for the Russian driver.

However, his GRX teammate Niclas Gronholm, who initially won round one of the series on track before being handed a post-race penalty which dropped him behind Kevin Hansen, got held up in traffic in Q1, then made a slow start in Q2 and was 11th fastest.

The Finn is ninth at the end of day one, a place ahead of double DTM champion Timo Scheider.

Fourth and fifth positions at the close of the first day are held by Audi drivers Andreas Bakkerud and Krisztian Szabo after solid performances from both drivers.

Raymond delivered an impressive run in the GCK Academy Renault to be sixth after the first two qualifying sessions.

British driver and former Olympic champion Chris Hoy finished both of first qualifying races, despite a jump start in Q1 and a spin at the end of Q2, and rounded off his first day of World RX inside the points, in 15th.

Overnight standings:

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Q1	Q2	QP
1	Timmy Hansen	Peugeot 208	50	50	100
2	Kevin Hansen	Peugeot 208	45	45	90
3	Timur Timerzyanov	Hyundai i20	42	42	84
4	Andreas Bakkerud	Audi S1	39	39	78
5	Krisztián Szabó	Audi S1	35	40	75
6	Cyril Raymond	Renault Clio RS	36	38	74
7	Janis Baumanis	Ford Fiesta	37	36	73
8	Guerlain Chicherit	Renault Megane RS	40	32	72
9	Niclas Gronholm	Hyundai i20	38	33	71
10	Timo Scheider	Seat Ibiza	33	37	70
11	Rokas Baciuska	Škoda Fabia	32	35	67
12	Liam Doran	Audi S1	34	31	65
13	Tamas Karai	Audi A1	31	30	61
14	Guillaume De	Renault Clio RS	30	29	59
15	Chris Hoy	Ford Fiesta	28	27	55
16	Jani Paasonen	Ford Fiesta	29	26	55
17	Oliver Bennett	Mini Cooper	24	28	52
18	Anton Marklund	Renault Megane RS		34	34
19	Herve Knapick	Citroen DS3	24		24
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