#stephan verdier

[modified-subaru]

Stephan Verdier

[christopherleone-blog]

Stephan Verdier qualified fourth and finished ninth in July's Global Rallycross Championship round at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. In this article, Stephan takes us through the race weekend in his own words.

"When they showed the 10 second board, everybody was going through the (process). So everybody was looking at the lights, and when the lights turned green, I had a really bad reaction time because of that. I talked to Tanner (Foust) after the race and he said 'Yeah, I never saw the 30 second board either.' It didn't really bother us that much, but I had a bad start."

[christopherleone-blog]

Global Rallycross Championship competitor and world-renowned stunt driver Stephan Verdier was put in charge of driving duties for Audi's "Return to Snake River Canyon" commercial, where the brand launched the RS5 into the Idaho sky a la Evel Knievel. Here, Verdier talks about driving the car and making the commercial.

“It was a fantastic car, and we pushed it hard," Verdier says. "We really went super fast and in the shots you see the car going 150, 155 miles an hour the road. And that was actual speed, nothing was altered on the commercial when you see how fast the car was going.”

[deanyta-wrc]

X Games 18 Heat 2 Sebastien Loeb Wins Foust Lasek Verdier

[overshadowed]

Los Angeles Motorcity fandom! Wanna support Motorcity even more?! After the Motorcity Anime Expo panel on Saturday (June 30th 9am), keep Sunday open and go to the Xgames to support our pro rally driver Stephan Verdier who will be racing his Morotcity rally car in Sunday's Rallycross event!  This is going to be an exciting year for Stephan, racing as a privateer for many years, this year he'll be racing with factory support for the first time in his career from Hyundai and Rhys Millen Racing! 

For all you hardcore WRC fans (like myself) if you haven't heard, 8 times WRC champ Sébastien Loeb will be competing in Sunday's Rallycross event too! This is going to be crazy awesome!

A few of the Motorcity crew including myself, will be there rocking our Burner shirts showing our support. Hit me up here or on Twitter @overunder if you are going to the Xgames this weekend, find us and say hi!

The race will also be broadcasted on ESPN 2 and ESPN. (July 1st 3:00PM ET )

[christopherleone-blog]

Currently third in Global Rallycross Championship points, Stephan Verdier remains the only non-Ford driver in the series to score a podium finish, quickly becoming the expert of alternate strategy by running clean laps by himself at Charlotte. Despite some rotten luck at Texas and an engine built for stage rally rather than rallycross, Verdier's early-season performance has him confident in his chances at X Games, the "Super Bowl" of the GRC.

"I'm going to be definitely more aggressive than I was during the other races, but I've got to be smart about it too," Verdier said. "Maybe instead of waiting in the back, I'll be fighting with the guys up front from the start and try to see what I can do. But we'll see after qualifying my times compared to the other guys. If I'm really close to them, there's definitely a chance of me fighting with them."

[christopherleone-blog]

Marcus Gronholm and Tanner Foust come into X Games first and second in Global Rallycross points, making them two of the favorites to win it all this weekend. But eight-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb will also come to the event in a brand-new Citroen DS3. Drivers Stephan Verdier, Samuel Hubinette, and Andy Scott, and legendary technical director Per Eklund discuss what it will take to beat the favorites on Sunday.

HUBINETTE: In the past, it’s been that I’ve been able to brake a little later, because the car is very stable, and also planning to take the joker lap at the right time to try and avoid getting into traffic. So that’s my strategy – to stay away from trouble and make a smart choice about the joker lap.

EKLUND: Liam Doran was the winner last year (in Super Rally), and he was really disastrous on the last race, he blew everything on the car up. It’s going to be a tough race, the final.

SCOTT: And again, we’re fighting against a factory backed team, and I think that we’re making a good account of ourselves with the results and the team setup that we have. But of course it would be fantastic to pull off a win over all the factory teams.

[christopherleone-blog]

An expert panel of Per Eklund, Samuel Hubinette, Andy Scott, and Stephan Verdier unite once again to discuss some of the details of this year's course at X Games, as well as the differences in the car that will come from the long-awaited addition of dirt. Though the course is based on last year's layout, the series has made some significant changes.

SCOTT: The jump that they’re using at X Games is going to be the same jump that they used at Texas, it’s not going to be a dirt jump this year. So that’s been confirmed in the supplementary regulations.

EKLUND: In case you want to make the car jump fast, you lose on the gravel. It’s a compromise there. But you must take the jump, that’s very important. So we don’t know what we’re doing exactly. We know it’s the same place, but last year we (went) counterclockwise, and this year we’re going the other way.