Petter Solberg wins World Rallycross RX at Lydden Hill

Petter Solberg wins at Lydden Hill

Yesterday I took a day out to go and watch the UK round of  the World RallycrossRX championship at the Lydden Hill circuit. It has been many years since my last visit to the circuit, but with the ultra competitive world rallycross RX championship I just had to get up and get along to this.

In the inaugural season in 2014 Petter Solberg took the title, becoming the only double FIA world champion. He won the FIA World Rally Championship in 2003 too. Stars from across motorsport and the globe are coming to world rallycross, it’s fast, the races are short and the pits and star drivers are accessible for the fans.

The circuit at Lydden Hill is just 1600 metres long, and the heats are four laps and the finals six laps. The surface is a mixture of tarmac and gravel and the top category cars are 2-litre turbo charged, four wheel drive monsters with around 600 horsepower. Racing is close fought with up to six cars on track at the same time.

I started my day at the exit of the loose section Chessons Drift and opted for the 70-200mm lens with a 1.4x extender on the EOS 5D Mark III. I used manual exposure and used custom shooting mode to allow me to switch rapidly between a panning setup with slower shutter speeds and lower ISO and an action stopping faster shutter speed and higher ISO setup. The panning shots below were taken at 1/400s.

I like the track, the fences between the spectator spaces are low, and you can move all around the circuit to get different vantage points during the day. At the highest point of the circuit, the hairpin, even the sun shone.

Peter Solberg wins semi-final and final

I met up with photographer Dan Fegent earlier in the day, and he had told me that Petter Solberg was absolutely killing the competition and was almost a second faster than everyone else.

Therefore it was no surprise that Petter was starting the final from the pole position on the grid. On the opening lap, three cars led by Mattias Ekström took the joker lap. The joker lap is a longer slower lap that each car must complete at least once during each race. Mattias’ gamble was that running in fourth place on the track he could be quicker than Petter and pass him when Petter completed his joker lap.

Mattias Ekström (white Audi in the centre at the rear of the picture) closes in on the two cars running behind Petter Solberg having completed his joker lap. Petter Solberg is ahead of these two cars leading the race.

Third place car takes the joker lap and emerges well behind Ekström, it’s going to be close…

Petter Solberg takes the joker lap at the last possible moment, but where is Ekström?

Ekström is right with Solberg and now it’s a battle for who has the best grip and most direct line…

Solberg just gets in front and now there’s just the rest of the lap to complete while holding of Ekström, certainly not an easy task, but one that Petter managed to do.

On the slow down lap Petter gets out of the car and adjusts the roof mounted on-board camera to celebrate his win.

Gear…

I used a combination of EOS 7D and EOS 5D Mark III cameras with the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens and EF Extender 1.4x II for these shots. The frame rate of the EOS 7D was really handy for the shots of the final lap. I shot a sequence of 24 frames showing Petter’s jump from the joker lap 🙂