Jos has a good running in the Hellendoorn Rally

Published on 17 September 2022 by Mike Motilall

Jos Verstappen has had a good running in the Hellendoorn Rally. After having driven six stages in three different trials, the novel rally driver was eventually classified an overall fifth fastest. With Harm van Koppen as his co-pilot in the Citroën C3 Rally2, Jos is driving for Verstappen.com Racing on behalf of DG Sport Competition.

The stages Hallerhoek, Mageleresch and Daarle were driven twice on Friday evening. Jos finished sixth, sixth and seventh during the first round and was an overall sixth fastest; some 42 seconds astray from the very quick Sebastian Lefebvre. At that moment, Hans Weijs was trailing, just a second-and-a-half down.

The drivers had to deal with not only darkness that was creeping in, but also with treacherous conditions due to an earlier rain shower. At first nobody was really willing to run on the dry weather tyres. Jos said the following after the second trial: “The second trial felt a bit better than the first one, but it is slippery. Much slippery than we expected.”

During the second round, consisting of three trials, Jos didn’t hold back. With a fifth, seventh and sixth place finish, Verstappen climbed to an overall fifth fastest time, 1:26 down on Lefebvre. Weijs came in second on Friday, ahead of Bob de Jong.

On Saturday, a further ten trials are on the agenda, between 10.43 and 20.48 hrs.