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Loeb tops day 1 Cooper tires Hockenheim RX

France's Sebastien Loeb is Top Qualifier after the opening day of action at Hockenheim in Germany, round three of the FIA World Rallycross Championship.

Loeb set the fastest time in Q1 and Q2 in a near perfect day for the Team Peugeot-Hansen squad, as Sweden's Timmy Hansen was fifth and second in the opening two qualifying races and is third in the Intermediate Classification, with his brother Kevin Hansen racing the third Peugeot-Hansen Peugeot 208 WRX to fourth overall on Friday afternoon.

"Today has been a very good day. I first of all had a good start position with pole, here it seems to be quite important. I made some good starts, took the lead in each race and finally I had two clean races. I could do my own pace and it was enough to win both qualifying so that was a great start,' said Loeb. "The car is easier to drive than last year, we are more consistent in our lap times. It's more consistence, less tricky and more efficient. In rallycross you never know what can happen but for sure I will try to do the same tomorrow. We will see, we will try again to make good starts and we can hope for the same."

Sweden's Johan Kristoffersson was second in Q1 and third in Q2, to be second in the Intermediate Classification, but his PSRX Volkswagen Sweden team mate, Petter Solberg, had a challenging day. After being eighth fastest in Q1, Andreas Bakkerud and Solberg had contact in the first corner of their Q2 race causing significant damage to both cars. Both finished, but were 21st and 22nd in Q2 and are both outside the semi-final qualifying positions before Q3 and Q4 tomorrow afternoon.

Russia's Timur Timerzyanov beat World RX Champion Mattias Ekstrom in Q2 and is fifth in the Intermediate Classification with MJP Racing Team Austria's Timo Scheider sixth, America's Ken Block seventh - thanks to fourth fastest time in Q2 - and Latvia's Reinis Nitiss one place ahead of EKS owner Ekstrom, in eighth. Sweden's Kevin Eriksson, France's Jean-Baptiste Dubourg and Latvia's Janis Baumanis complete the list of drivers inside the top twelve.

Zdroj: fiaworldrallycross.com