Rallycross
Swedish rallycross drivers Timmy and Kevin Hansen take their World RX winning skills to the next level in the latest Oracle Red Bull Racing Road Trip video.
This is not your standard task to check of your to-do list. Not even if you’re one of the world’s best rallycross drivers. As the brothers and multiple World RX winners Timmy and Kevin Hansen experienced, jumping over a Formula One car in your rallycross car, simultaneously and in opposite directions, is one big adrenaline-fuelled accomplishment.
And it’s not easy. Everything needs to line-up perfectly: jumps, speed, timings, film crew and safety. Three seconds in the air translates to a huge number of hours behind-the-scenes to make it all happen. And obviously, there is going to be a few hiccups along the way.
Let’s find out what went smoothly… and what didn’t.
Watch the segment with the Hansen brothers chasing and jumping over the Oracle Red Bull Racing's RB7 in the video below:
01
Dialling in the technique
The scene is set, the jumps are shaped, and the cameras are rolling. Now all Timmy and Kevin have to do is rally enough speed on an almost-too-short in-run, make it over a big gap, with a pretty expensive Formula One car in the middle, and time it perfectly so that they meet each other mid-air. Easy? Not really.
That’s a lot of different things that have to go right. First things first. How do you even send a gap jump in a rally car? You know, without landing in the middle or flipping over.
“There’s a technique too it for sure”, older brother Timmy says and explains: “A car naturally wants to rotate forwards so there’s a few things we have to do in order to avoid landing on the nose of the car. First, you have to brake slightly just before taking off. That way, the car gets more planted and stable. Then, as you jump you want to hit the gas in order to get acceleration and bring the weight to the back of the car. You need to keep the wheels spinning in the air so that you rotate backwards, in order to land on the back wheels as much as possible. If you do nothing over a jump you will land super hard on the front and, if things go really bad, flip the car.”
A car naturally wants to rotate forwards so there’s a few things we have to do in order to avoid landing on the nose of the car.
02
Pre-testing the jumps
With the technique dialled, the next step is getting enough speed to make it across the gap. But how do they know first time how much speed they need to get over?
“We had Fredrik Berggren, a freestyle motocross rider, test the jumps first”, younger brother Kevin say. “MX riders always seem to have a better of what speed and distance you need to get over a jump compared to us, in a car”. Also, he explains, MX riders can jump of their bike if something goes wrong, whilst in a rallycross car you are pretty strapped in with nowhere to go if things go south. Literally.
So, before the Hansen brothers give the jumps ago, pro MX rider Fredrik does the pre-checks: he sends the jumps a couple of times and then relays back to Timmy and Kevin how fast they need to go in order to make it over. The magic number? 100 km/h.
03
Don’t fall in the gap
However, rallying up 100 km on the just about 30-meter long in-run turns out to be a mission in itself. Timmy and Kevin have multiple goes and use all their skills in order to make it happen. “The gravel made it hard to get traction, which in turn made it hard to reach 100 km in time for the jump. We could have done with the run-in being longer, especially for my jump, which was the highest of the two”, Timmy says.
Finally, they feel confident to give the jumps a go. Timmy, the first one to send it, just hits 100 km/h as he flies over the gap and lands perfectly the other side. About a minute later, Kevin mirrors his brother’s achievement.
However, second time around things get spicier. Not gaining enough speed, Timmy comes up short and slams the read of his car into the back of the landing. Millimetres away from not making it across, luckily momentum carries Timmy and his car over to the right side of the landing. Neither car nor driver sustain any damage. “I have never landed short before and it really isn’t something you want to do”, Timmy says with a bit of a shiver. “I was lucky though; five more centimetres and it could have been much worse. It definitely stuck in my mind over night”, he confesses. Bet it did.
I was lucky though; five more centimetres and it could have been much worse. It definitely stuck in my mind over night.
04
Building until perfection
Clearly, some minor adjustments are needed to make the jumps run smoothly and the dig crew gets to work putting in the hours over a long, but successful night shift before the big day.
The build has been a technical one from the start. Magnus Ljungström, who is in charge of the process, has built a lot of features in his life, but a double RX crossover jump isn’t one of them. Not that surprising, really. “Whether it’s for skiing and snowboarding or cars and MX, most jumps follow a similar pattern when it comes to angles, speed etc. But of course, every build is different. This one has definitely been a special one.”
He continuous: “The challenge has been to get one of the jumps high enough so that you can see both cars in the air at the same time. Originally, we were working with the dimensions 1,3 meters for the small jump and 1,8 for the bigger one, but in the end the big jump had to be 2,5 meters high for it to work”, Fredrik says.
It's also the first time the Hansen brothers are part of building their own jump from scratch. An equally exciting as nerve-wracking experience. “It’s not the first time we send gap jumps, but the jumps we’ve done in the past have been built and tested by someone else beforehand. But this time we came up with the idea, said what kind of jumps we needed and what they had to look like. Even if we weren’t on-site during the build processes, we were part of it over Facetime”, Timmy says.
Then add the fact that the jumps have to be opposites and the brother have to jump towards each other mid-air. A new experience that too.
05
Completing the mission
With the jumps rebuilt, scene set and cameras rolling, it is finally time for the real deal. Someone counts down to the brothers over the radio: three, two, one, GO!
Timmy and Kevin set off in opposite ends of the gravel pit with grit flying in all directions before they take to the air and land smoothly on opposite sides one another. Success.
“It couldn’t have gone any better. It feels like winning a race, just so flipping good”, a happy Timmy say after the big day has come to an end. Kevin is equally chuffed: “You are proper nervous before, especially with getting the timings right and stuff. And then you get the “let’s go” over the radio and you put the foot to the floor. You’re so focused. Then when you realise that you’ve nailed it, I mean, it’s just such a cool feeling”.
You are proper nervous before, especially with getting the timings right and stuff... Then when you realise that you’ve nailed it, I mean, it’s just such a cool feeling.
Make sure you check out the brother’s big feat in the latest Oracle Red Bull Racing video here.
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