Tohill and team equal best Euro Championship finish
DEREK Tohill and the PFCRX team equalled their best-ever finish in the FIA European Rallycross Championship for Supercars at Loheac in France, finishing fifth overall in a 35-strong field last weekend.
Competing in front of some 75,000 spectators, the Terenure man won his opening two races of the weekend and was sitting fifth overall after Q3.
Day Two brought a heavy downfall, but with substantial experience of competing in wet con-ditions, the PFCRX squad qualified seventh in the Intermediate classification to maintain a 100 per cent semi-final qualifying record in Euro RX this season.
Starting from the middle of the grid for Semi-Final One, he made a good start and finished the race in third, despite struggling with understeer in the 600 horsepower four-wheel drive car.
Making it into the final for the second occasion in 2017, the Dubliner came home in a strong fifth place after having challenged championship leader Anton Marklund throughout.
The result served to equal the squad’s previous best in Barcelona back in April and moves him up to seventh in the standings, with the final round of the series set to take place in Latvia in two weeks’ time.
“I think we definitely had the least amount of practice laps of any competitor” Tohill pointed out. “We started off on the back foot but we got back on track and pace was really good in the dry, and it was great to win our first two qualifying races.
“In Q3 we finished second, but then [Jerome] Grosset-Janin was disqualified so we effectively won our first three races.
“The track conditions got worse through the day and I don’t think we moved quick enough with the conditions, but it was great to finish third in the semi-finals and be on the coat tails of (Anton) Marklund in the final.
“We were pushing hard, things were getting a bit hairy, so we decided to just bring it home for a good result.
“The places you really want to have good results are here or in Holjes (Sweden), so to make the final in front of the massive crowds, to have won so many races and to get a lot of compliments is good for team morale.
“We’re moving in the right direction, we’re putting pressure on the top three or four in Euro RX now and the lap times are getting closer and closer” he added.
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