The 2023 Spanish Autocross Championship season came to an end in Jerez de los Caballeros on 21 and 22 October. The adverse weather conditions on Sunday affected the development of the competition, forcing the cancellation of the Car Cross and Division 1 finals. For Speed Car, the final round of the competition brought two new titles as Pol Durán confirmed his leadership with another victory that certified the achievement of the Spanish Car Cross Series Championship for the Speed Car Wonder driver, while Quim González finished seventh to win the Spanish Car Cross Junior Championship. In addition, two other Wonder drivers, Pep Arqué, in Car Cross, and Josep Aranda, in Car Cross Series, were proclaimed runners-up in their categories, while in Buggy Sabino García won the 1.6 Trophy.
Although a breakdown prevented him from finishing the final, the points he had accumulated throughout the season meant that Sabino García was already assured of first place in the 1.6 Buggy Trophy, a competition in which he has taken part at the wheel of a TTR Speed Car with which he finished second of the Buggy division in Jerez de los Caballeros, both in the timed practice sessions and in the qualifying rounds.
The poor track conditions caused by heavy rains led to the cancellation of the Car Cross final after a red flag interruption at the start of the race due to a multiple incident. Therefore, the classification of the last race of the season was defined on the basis of the results of the qualifying rounds. In these, the best placed of the four drivers who competed in Jerez de los Caballeros with a Speed Car was Pep Arqué, third overall after winning one race and second in the other two. With the points scored in the final round of the championship, the Catalan Wonder driver finished definitively in second place in the championship.
Two other Wonders took part in the Extremadura competition, driven by Pedro Matador, who finished fifth after crossing the finish line in third position in his three qualifying heats, and Borja González, who achieved exactly the same positions and qualified sixth after finishing behind his team-mate in the timed practice session.
Iván Méndez's Xtrem completed the Speed Car representation in the last race of the year, finishing eighth after being fourth in two of the races and fifth in another.
The title of the Car Cross Series category was up for grabs in Jerez de los Caballeros between the two Speed Car Wonder drivers who dominated the season, Pol Durán and Josep Aranda. In the final event of the year, Pol gave no option and after winning his three qualifying heats he also won the final, which allowed him to celebrate from the top of the podium the achievement of his first Spanish Championship. Josep Aranda took second place both in the last race of the year and in the overall classification of the championship, completing the 1-2 result for the Car Cross cars manufactured by Industrias Lahoz.
A third driver took part in the Extremadura event with another Wonder, the Asturian Juan García Pandiella, who set the fifth fastest time in the timed session and sixth in the qualifying rounds, but had to retire on the first lap of the final after being involved in one of the incidents that led to a red flag shortly after the start of the race..
Seventh place in the final was more than enough for Quim González to win the Spanish Junior Car Cross Championship. The Wonder driver arrived at the last round of the season with an advantage at the top of the standings and did not need to take any risks to win the title after a weekend in which he was seventh in the time trial and added a third, a fifth and a sixth in the qualifying rounds before completing the final without any major problems to become the new champion of the category in which the youngest drivers of the national Autocross compete.
Another Speed Car driver in Jerez de los Caballeros was Joan Aranda, who qualified thirteenth after failing to complete the first lap of the final after starting from twelfth position..
Pictures: CEAX RFEdA press service
