Character-building weekend for Trogen in Hell
Sami-Matti Trogen endured a character-building weekend in the fourth round of the RX2 International Series at Hell in Norway (June 16).
Reigning RX Academy Champion Trogen’s weekend got off to strong start on Saturday morning at one of the most heralded rallycross circuits on the calendar, with fastest time in Free Practice Two. However, contact at the first corner in the first three qualifiers hampered Trogen’s cause, but a clean start in Q4 and an accomplished overtake in the joker lap led to a race win and third fastest time.
Starting from a sub-optimal position on the semi-final one grid, Trogen pushed hard to try and progress through the field after an early joker, and on the final lap made a move to climb into a final qualifying position, but without room on the inside of the car ahead, ran over a kerb and damaged the car’s suspension, dropping the 17-year old down the order.
- It’s been a disappointing race for me. Today I had good speed and finally in Q4 I had a race win and third time overall. We didn’t have the best starting position for the semi-final, but I pushed hard on the first laps, then when the car in front went into the joker he came out just in front of me, so I needed to overtake him. I couldn’t find a way, then in the last lap I was too optimistic and tried to overtake in turn two, but it didn’t work. Of course I wanted to try something to overtake, it was a bit of a stupid move, but I tired. We had good pace this weekend, I had bad luck on Saturday with the starts, we just need to get everything together and hopefully we have some better luck in the Q1 draw in the next race. I was fast in free practice here, and I was better in the first day than at previous events, so I know we have the speed now we need to show it in Holjes, Trogen sums up the weekend.
- We had a tough weekend with difficult starts in Q1, Q2, and Q3. We changed some things in time for Q4 and that was good, Sami-Matti got away at the start and did the third fastest time. But everything reflected on the bad qualifiers. It’s so hard to start from the outside here and you just have to wait and see what the other guys do. Sami-Matti did everything he could in the semi-final but the attempt to overtake was a bit too much. He could have tried to overtake in a different place or just drive fair and just follow to the finish line. Of course you get really desperate when you’re in that position, that’s why he tried to do this overtake but you could see it not working from the start. That’s how it is, the pace was good all weekend, we were amoung the fastest so we just need to put Hell behind us and take the positives to Holjes, says Joni Wiman, SET Promotion RX2 Crew Chief and spotter.
The next round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship and RX2 International Series will take place at Holjes in Sweden (July 5 – 7).