Rallycross: Roberts Vītols has amazing stages of the British Championship (VIDEO)

Latvian rallycross driver Roberts Vītols has completed two rounds – the sixth and seventh – of the British Rallycross Championship Junior class in Pembrokeshire. The rounds in Pembrokeshire turned out dramatically, and Roberts failed to achieve success this time.

Day one – stage without final

In the first qualification of the sixth stage held on Saturday, Roberts showed the third result, losing only to his two main competitors, Patrick O’Donovan and Luke Constantine. At that time, Vītols’ father, Uģis, reported that the rider did not seem to have opened up for this race yet – he could go faster, but Roberts was not yet ready for a full-fledged fight. Uģis admitted that one of the reasons could be the news that the accident in the previous stage in Leadenhill did not change the results, because the rider who knocked Robert off the track retained his result. We previously reported that the judges had postponed the review of the Leadenhill incident and the announcement of the results until this weekend’s stage in Pembroke.

In the second qualifying round, Vītols started more successfully, taking second place. Roberts was less than a second behind Constantine. Although O`Donovan hit the back of the Latvian’s car quite well during the race, the judges did not change the result in this case.

The third qualifying session had an unpleasant outcome – there was a collision at the beginning of the race, from which Vītols tried to take the lead. However, one of the crashed cars bounced off unsuccessfully, hitting Roberts’ car and bending the rack. The driver reached the finish line with a bent wheel, but was only the seventh result in the series. In the sum of three races, this meant fifth place after qualifying.

The situation was unfortunate, as the continuation of the Junior class battles turned out to be almost unbelievable. The start was given in the final, but in the second corner, there was a collision of several cars, after which the race was stopped. At that moment, Vītolas’ car seemed to be surrounded from all sides, but the team bravely took to the start in the restart.

However, the next attempt at the final was also ended with red flags – again due to a massive crash. Since the young people’s struggles seriously disrupted the race day’s plans, a decision was made not to give another start to the final, but to declare the stage’s outcome based on the qualification results. This was not beneficial for Vītols due to a bad third run, as he finished the stage in fifth place. However, since the fight for the overall victory after the previous stage has become almost unrealistic, the team perceives the events more as an experience than something terrible. Uģis Vītols: “As it is, it is, such a decision has been made. Nothing bad has happened, rather we gained a huge amount of experience about what and how happens in such situations, what the judgments are, what feelings you have to stand on the starting line in the final several times. Exciting! Nothing, tomorrow is a new day, let’s see what will happen next.”

Day two – anarchy on the track

On the second day, which was the seventh round of the championship, Roberts Vītols had an excellent qualification: having won the races and taken two second places, the Latvian ended the qualification in the leading position. However, the incredible happened in the final – along with active direct battles, competitors began to push the tire piles located on the inside of the bends along the track, knocking them down, or simply cutting the bends. Although the Junior class was expressly warned about violating, knocking out, or going around the track boundaries, no dramatic decisions were made. Roberts performed his laps as correctly as possible, without touching the inside of the bends. Instead, he was even forced to leave the track, because the piles of other tires were in the middle of the road. As a result, the final ended in seventh place, which means that the Pembry weekend turned out to be catastrophic in terms of results.

Currently, the Latvian team has not received an official explanation about the situations experienced on the track. Interestingly, one of the reasons for the suspension of the final on Saturday was precisely the fact that a pile of tires ended up on the track…

Video from Roberts Vītols’ car, which clearly shows the other athletes’ lack of shyness in cutting the track.