A complete rallycross and off-road racing
newcomer prior to the 2024 campaign, Wlömer endured a baptism of fire in the
weather-affected curtain-raiser in Sweden last month, in which he was
there-or-thereabouts during the heat races – even hassling defending champion
Nils Andersson for a while in heat four – but then struggled for visibility in
the final, winding up fifth, more than six seconds shy of the rostrum.
In very different conditions in Hungary two
weeks ago, with intense
rain replaced by intense temperatures, the German upped the ante, although after pushing
Marko Muru hard in heat one, he found himself in the wars twice in heat two – a
race that both began and ended with a crash.
Significantly delayed by a first corner crunch,
Wlömer was endeavouring to reclaim second place when an error into Turn Four on
the last lap saw him clip the kerb on the inside, which pitched his ZEROID X1
up on two wheels and sent him into the barriers on the outside...
Undeterred, the Berlin native produced another
Andersson-challenging performance in heat three and then similarly piled the
pressure on the Swede’s Team E stablemate Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky in heat
four, before ‘messing up the start’ from fifth on the grid in the final.
After diving into the joker on the opening
tour, Wlömer thereafter dug deep to take the chequered flag less than 1.5 seconds
adrift of the podium, impressively posting the race’s second-fastest lap along
the way. The end result might have been the same as in Sweden three weeks
earlier, but in terms of his level of competitiveness, it was night-and-day...
“I’m 100 per cent loving the series and the car,
and I feel I’ve made a lot of progress,” enthused the 22-year-old former
circuit racer. “My first event at Höljes was definitely all about extremes, from the
jumps to the weather, and I’d never raced on such a short, compact track before.
“The rain washed up so much mud onto the
windscreen, and my wipers broke in both the semi-final and the final! In the
semi-final, it wasn’t too bad as it happened towards the end, but in the final
they broke on lap two, which made the rest of the race quite a challenge, to
say the least!
“At Nyirád, I got to know the car better in
much more consistent conditions but around a very different type of circuit – and I think its
longer, faster layout suited me far more than Höljes had. It was a lot of fun,
and I felt I took a step closer there to the top drivers in RX2e.
“It always helps to follow someone closely to
see the lines they are taking, where they are braking and how they approach the
different corners, and that’s even more useful when it’s the champion you’re
following. I felt like I had the pace to genuinely challenge [Andersson] in
heat three in Hungary.
“I know the starts are still an area I need to
work on and improve, especially being such an important factor in rallycross –
I really need to focus on
getting them down – but I’m feeling increasingly comfortable in the car
now and in pushing it to the limit and I think we’ve shown we have good speed. At Mettet, I need to learn
the track and get onto the pace as quickly as I can – and then the target has
to be the podium.”
Greece
Poland
Portugal