EKS Audi Sport’s Mattias Ekstrom was quickest in Q2 at the World RX of Belgium, but it’s Petter Solberg who holds the overnight TQ (top qualifier) position in the third round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship at Mettet.

Ekstrom won Q2 race three despite being beaten to the first corner by his EKS Audi Sport team mate, Andreas Bakkerud. The Norwegian led until the final lap, when his Audi S1 RX quattro experienced a momentary problem, dropping him to third and allowing Ekstrom to take the race win. 

In the final race of the session, Solberg led until he took his joker on lap three in reaction to Team Peugeot Total’s Timmy Hansen having taken his joker on lap two, the two drivers racing side-by-side into the first corner of the final lap. With Hansen holding onto the advantage to win, the Swede would just miss Ekstrom’s best time by less than a tenth of a second.

Ekstrom is second after Q2 in the Intermediate Classification ahead of Peugeot pairing Hansen and Sebastien Loeb and PSRX Volkswagen Sweden’s Johan Kristoffersson.

The third Peugeot driver, Kevin Hansen, was fifth in Q2 race four and sixth in the overall times, with GC Kompetition’s Guerlain Chicherit seventh and home hero Francois Duval eighth in the Comtoyou Racing Audi S1 RX quattro.

Olsbergs MSE’s Kevin Eriksson picked up a puncture on his Ford Fiesta ST in Q2 race two and was beaten to victory by Chicherit but held off Team STARD driver Janis Baumanis. Eriksson is just inside the semi-final positions in 12th but Baumanis is 15th ahead of Q3 and Q4 tomorrow morning.