Hanninen top rally man in RoC Nations’ Cup

3rd December 2011

Juho Hanninen upheld the rallying world's honour in the Nations' Cup leg of the Race of Champions in Dusseldrof tonight, but lost out to Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel in the final.

S-WRC champion and former Intercontinental Rally Challenge title-winner Hanninen was teamed with Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen in Team Nordic. Though the Finn lost out to Sebastien Ogier in Audi R8 sportscars and DTM man Timo Scheider in VW Sciroccos in the heats, he made the most of his familiarity with the Skoda Fabia S2000 to beat Travis Pastrana in his other heat - helped by the flamboyant American getting his Fabia up on two wheels and planting it into the barriers.

With Kristensen winning all his heats, the duo then took on the French (Ogier and Romain Grosjean) in the semis, and won both legs - Hanninen getting revenge over Ogier in VWs, ironically.

But Germany's Vettel and Michael Schumacher partnership proved unbeatable in the grand final again, winning the Nations' Cup for a fifth consecutive year as Schumacher pipped Kristensen in the KTM X-Bow and a mistake from Hanninen in the RoC buggy left Vettel clear to dominate the deciding shoot-out.

Ogier's defeat to Hanninen in the semis ended what had been a perfect run for the Frenchman - who also gave Volkswagen's Polo WRC its public debut with some demonstration laps prior to the event kicking off. Ogier had beaten Scheider in Skoda Fabias and Pastrana in VW Sciroccos as well as outpacing Hanninen in their first meeting of the night.

American rally men Pastrana and Brian Deegan didn't get far for Team USA, with Pastrana's defeat of Scheider in an Audi R8 heat their only win.

IRC runner-up Jan Kopecky was part of Team Slavic with F1's Vitaly Petrov. Beaten by Vettel in buggies and Andy Priaulx in KTMs, Kopecky did salvage one win in his regular Skoda against last year's outright RoC winner Filipe Albuquerque.