Villeneuve well placed to qualify in World RX of Finland

Jacques Villeneuve ran the Indy 500 last month. This weekend the former World Champ is running World Rallycross in Finland.

Kouvola, Finland — Saturday 28 June, 2014: Albatec Racing’s Jacques Villeneuve is well placed to qualify for tomorrow’s World RX of Norway after another strong pace in the opening two heats puts him joint 12th in the intermediate standings. The fourth round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship, held at the stunning Kouvola track, saw the former F1 World Champion power his two-litre, 16v Albatec Peugeot 208 to second place and the 13th fastest overall race time in heat one.

In the second round of heats held in changeable conditions, the former Indycar World Series Champion took fourth, and a respectable race time, however as track conditions improved the subsequent heat times tumbled, pushing the Indy 500 winner back to 14th. The joint results are enough to see the French-Canadian in joint 12th place though, with the results of tomorrow’s two final heats helping to determine the final grid line-up for the two six-car semi finals.

Tomorrow’s track action resumes with an hour-long warm-up at 09.00, followed by two final qualifying heats that get underway from 10.30. The two semi finals and the all-important final are due to start from 14.30 with the main Supercar final around 17.00. Live timing, live streaming and additional event information is available at www.rallycrossrx.com.

Andy Scott, Albatec Team Principal:

“It’s been a difficult day with the weather conditions and frankly I’m pleased to be where we are after the first two heats. In the opening heat Jacques drove very well, he made some good passes but was held up a little by slower cars. In the second heats, the opening race was declared wet, the second borderline, but ours was possibly OK as a dry race and we were probably not on the right tyre for the track.

“The track dried for the final two heats, and as a results were considerably quicker which dropped us down the order. Taking all that into consideration, we are still well placed to qualify, providing we have two strong finishes tomorrow, which I believe we can achieve."

Jacques Villeneuve, Albatec Racing Driver #25:

“This Kouvola track is great, a lot of fun, but unfortunately we didn’t get the best results from the two heats and so that’s a little frustrating. The car is good, there are no major problems there, we just need to get better starts and find an easier way to get past the slower cars out there.

“Lying joints 12th overnight means we need another two clean, strong races tomorrow, but the car is quick, so I’m confident we can move up the order and progress to the finals.