Hansen focussed on the future after ‘missing the goal’ in 2023

The curtain may barely have fallen upon the 2023 season, but Timmy Hansen is already looking ahead to 2024 as he bids to quickly banish the memory of an FIA World Rallycross Championship campaign during which, he admits, he consistently ‘missed the goal’.

Hansen has been a World RX front-runner since the series’ inception, finishing inside the top three in the championship standings on no fewer than five occasions and lifting the biggest prize of all in 2019. This year, however, saw the Swede go winless for the first time since 2018 as he slumped to sixth in the standings – although his performance in Hong Kong showed that the spark is unquestionably still there.

Having fallen short of the final by just over a second on the Saturday, 24 hours later, Hansen turned up the wick. After throwing his ZEROID X1 car energetically around the Central Harbourfront circuit in pursuit of Niclas Grönholm in heat one – yielding the fourth-fastest time of the session, less than two-thirds-of-a second adrift of the outright benchmark – the Hansen World RX Team ace improved to third in heat two, but suspension damage on the opening lap of heat three stopped his burgeoning momentum in its tracks and dropped him to seventh in the intermediate ranking.

Undeterred, Hansen boldly flung it around the outside at the start of the semi-final to snatch the lead from fourth on the grid, thereafter fending off arch-rival Johan Kristoffersson until narrowly having to concede on the last lap. The 31-year-old then came home fourth in the final, barely three-tenths-of-a-second shy of a 46th career podium at the highest level.

“It felt like we did everything right, but it just wasn’t meant to be,” he reflected. “It wasn’t a great result to end the season. We had strong performance and good pace, but it never quite came together for me with the starts and minor issues keeping us away from the podium – the wrong things seemed to happen at the wrong moments.

“It was a bummer to miss the podium on the second day because the guys had to work really hard to repair the car. After the damage in heat three, they did a mega job and I really wanted to have some celebration for them. Unfortunately, in the end it didn’t come off, but I was super-happy for Patrick [O’Donovan] and huge congrats to Kevin [Hansen] for his win [on the Saturday]. That was so deserved and I couldn’t be prouder.

“It was definitely a great event overall, but for myself, it was a tough season, missing the goal all the time – so now, I’m looking forward to the future.”