NEOM: Four-time rallycross world champion Johan Kristoffersson pulled a risky side-swoop maneuver to take first place for Rosberg X Racing on Sunday, in the first NEOM X Prix in Saudi Arabia.
Last year, the Swedish driver won the inauguaural race for Extreme E in AlUla,racing for the team founded by Formula 1 world champion Nico Rosberg.
During the first lap, Sebastian Loeb in the X44 took an early lead as the red NEOM dust engulfed the air.
Soon after, Tanner Foust, racing for McLaren, the motorsport giants who joined the all-electric championship for season two, was blinded by the dust and crashed into the back of Rosberg’s Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky. The McLaren flipped and tumbled, taking Foust and his team out of their inaugural X Prix.
Carlos Sainz led the rest of the lap in the Acciona Sainz XE, followed by Loeb, Ahlin-Kottulinsky, and Sara Price in a Hummer EV for Chip Ganassi.
Loeb had closed the gap with Sainz to two seconds nearing the driver switch point when the red flag was called due to Foust’s crash, causing a reset.
The second drivers headed for the restart, where a one-lap shootout decided the race. Laia Sanz headed out first in the Sainz XE, followed by Cristina Gutierrez in the X44, then Kristofferson and Kyle Leduc — a time gap was created by the stewards to maintain the time advantages gained by the drivers in the first lap.
Kristofferson, lying third, activated his hyperdrive at a critical point during the long stretch in the fourth section, which propelled him past first Gutierrez and then Sanz to clinch the race.