June 14, 2014 

 

Hell, Norway — Albatec Racing's Jacques Villeneuve scored his first heat victory, and secured the fastest lap overall in heat one, on only his second FIA World Rallycross Championship outing in Norway today to lay 12th in the intermediate standings. After making his World RX debut in Portugal in April, the former F1 World Champion was forced to miss round two at Lydden Hill due to a clash with the Indy 500, and so spent two days testing at Holjës, Sweden this week in preparation for the first of the three Scandinavian World RX rounds.

 

Although the French-Canadian crashed late on the second day of testing causing extensive damaging his two litre, 16v Peugeot 208, the development work done by the team and its technical partners, Oreca, Sadev and Evo to both Jacques' car and the sister 208 of Team Principal Andy Scott allowed the Dumfries-based team to immediately show its potential of challenging for outright victory.

 

At the wheel of Andy's #26 600bhp Supercar Jacques was immediately on the pace at the Lånkeban track in this morning's open practice, setting a competitive lap time on only his first run, and first ever visit to the Norwegian track. Starting on pole position for his opening heat, he beat local hero former World Rally Champion Petter Solberg into the first corner and timed his joker lap to perfection, holding off pressure from the round one victor to claim the win and post the ninth fastest time.

 

Lining up in the penultimate heat two with reigning double European champion Timur Timerzyanov on pole, the former Indy 500 winner got boxed in slightly off the line and was left with no choice but to joker on lap one, dropping him down the order. Overcoming the extreme dust he recovered to finish fourth, and now lays 12th in the overnight standings and is well placed to qualify for his first semi final tomorrow.

Track action continues with warm-up at 09.30, followed by two final heats, two semi finals and the all-important final.

 

Andy Scott, Albatec Team Principal:

"I'm very pleased that Jacques was able to set some of the quickest laps of the day, he had a very good first race particularly, but his ultimate race time was compromised after contact at the start, however he did have the single fastest lap of the heats. It was a very difficult start position for race two, but that's one of the traits of this circuit where the joker is, and like several other drivers today, he erred on the side of caution – and once you come out of the joker with all that dust, it's tough to make any passes.

 

"We have a very strong entry here again, and everyone is improving their cars race after race, so with Jacques being away since Portugal it was very important to get him in the car and get a good set-up, so Sweden proved an invaluable exercise except of course for the damage. He certainly has the pace to be in the top five, and if he gets a couple of clean heats, he should be able to reach the semis, which will be a great result."

 

Jacques Villeneuve, Albatec Racing Driver #25:

"It's good to be back at a rallycross event. The track here is pretty good, a lot of fun actually and I'm glad we were able to get a heat win, although I lost maybe 1.5 seconds in the race which compromised my overall race time.

 

"The boys have worked hard since Portugal, and the car is greatly improved, which I think showed in testing and indeed here with the fast time in the opening heats. There's still more to come I'm sure, but every race we get better and better, and we'll be pushing on to make even more improvements for tomorrow."