Lynch opens up lead with dominant Belgian display

Wigan racer Tony Lynch successfully extended his advantage in the Supernational Championship standings with a dominant performance on track in the fifth meeting of the MSA British Rallycross Championship in association with ODYSSEY Batteries.

Westhoughton-based Tony made the long trip to the Maasmechelen circuit in Belgium looking to build on a promising season to date at the wheel of his new Ford KA, but surprised even himself with a near perfect weekend at a venue that hadn’t been kind to him in the past.

Despite an issue in practice that saw the brakes on the KA lock on, Tony was in imperious form when the first of three qualifying heats kicked off, taking his joker lap early and securing a comfortable win; something he would then repeat in heat two.

Although heat three would see Tony embroiled in a more heated battle out front, a third win ensured pole position for the all-important final as he looked to wrap up a first win of the year.

Whilst the KA slipped to third place at the start of the final, Tony quickly worked his way to the front and once into the lead, was able to reel off a number of laps that were some two seconds quicker than any of his rivals.

The end result was victory by almost ten seconds, with the points scored from the weekend – the first maximum of the year taking into account that Tony also picked up Fastest Time of the Day – allowing him to extend his championship lead to ten points.

“On paper, this weekend looked like it was really easy but it certainly wasn’t,” Tony admitted. “The whole team had to work really hard to make this result possible, and every time we went on track, we had to push to the maximum to come away with the win.

“When I had an issue with the brakes in practice, I thought my bad luck in Belgium was going to continue but we came back from it well to win the first two heats having taken the joker lap early. In heat three, I got stuck in traffic a bit more which made me realise our strategy to take the joker early might not be the right one.

“In the final, I slipped back to third at the start but I raced hard and made a move I was really proud of around the outside into turn one to take the lead from Paige [Bellerby]. Once I was ahead, our pace was clear to see and I’m delighted for the whole team and our sponsors to have opened our win account with the KA.

“We definitely opened a few eyes this weekend with our performance but I know that I can’t rest on my laurels and we’ll be looking over the car to try and find more performance ahead of the next round of the season as we seek to extend our advantage.”