Determined to get back to winning ways, Team Hansen arrived at Circuit de Catalunya with a number of updates after completing a few days of testing prior to the Barcelona double-header, and it has shown that these updates are in fact working. PHOTO CREDIT: Red Bull
Whilst traction has been an issue for the team in the first half of the season, they seem to have found a solution this weekend, as reigning champion Timmy Hansen claimed his first win of the season in emphatic style, with younger brother Kevin Hansen finishing in third place to give the team a double podium.
Timmy continued where he left off in 2019 by winning a nail-biting fight against championship leader Johan Kristoffersson by the slimmest of margins 0.417s.
"There has so many times I've been chasing Johan since 2017 when they entered with that Polo. We have been chasing it as Team Peugeot-Hansen, Peugeot as a factory team, and now as Team Hansen the privateer, so it feels like we've beaten the unbeatable today," Timmy Hansen said. "This result is a big box tick for me; It's something I've been trying to achieve for a long time, to beat that car and driver combination in a World RX final."
With improved traction and pace, Timmy believes that his can be a lot faster tomorrow with some fine-tuning.
"I believe we can go even faster tomorrow. There are still things we can fine-tune for this track and I know the more work there is, the faster we'll go. So I'm feeling very hopeful for tomorrow," he said. "If we can achieve the same again tomorrow as what we managed today that would be fantastic. Right now I'm happy and grateful for today's result but tomorrow it's about refocusing, doing another three qualifiers and two finals. Who knows, maybe we'll come home with two first-place trophies?"
Kevin Hansen also claimed his second podium of the season, after his second place at the team's home round in Sweden. He slotted in behind Timmy in the final and came out well clear of Niclas Grönholm securing third at the finish line.
"It's been an amazing day. It's great to get some pay-off for all the hard work we've been putting in since Finland and finally we're back on the top step with a 'brodium'!," he said. "This is an amazing place to do it, the site of our one-two finish last year, to come back to the top and win again."
"Our speed has definitely improved since the last round, so we definitely deserve this result. We need to keep our head down now; we've got a good car and we can improve it further. There are still some small things on my side that can be improved to unlock more speed."
"I'm in a good place for tomorrow regarding tyres, so generally, I'm really happy with how the weekend is going," he concludes.
14-time EuroRX champion and Team Principal, Kenneth Hansen finds some satisfaction that his team was able to chase down the Volkswagen Dealerteam BAUHAUS Polo R Supercar.
"It was absolutely fantastic to watch the end of this race, with Timmy chasing down the Polo; a very good factory car that we've had some difficulty matching the pace of in the past," he said.
Whilst Team Hansen claimed their first win of the season, Kenneth says the team needs to continue working as they have not found a perfect set-up just yet.
"All the development, testing, brainstorming we've done so far needs to continue this weekend because we haven't found a perfect set-up yet," he adds. "But we continued to improve our set-up throughout the day and planned our tyre strategy well, which made a difference."
"We really needed this one-three result today, to really demonstrate our performance and potential again with meaningful results. Now, we will focus to try and repeat this performance tomorrow."
"It will be difficult but we are feeling confident and we won't be staying still with our development either; we will be trying more changes to close the gap even further."
Written By - Junaid Samodien
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