Tanner Foust won the battle, but for the third consecutive year, Scott Speed won the war in the Red Bull Global Rallycross season finale. The Volkswagen Andretti Rallycross teammates took the race win and Supercar championship, respectively, in Saturday’s season finale from the Port of Los Angeles. “The whole week leading up to the race was just thinking about all the what-ifs and all the problems that could happen, even going in with such a big lead,” an elated Speed said after the checkered flag. “But my hat is off—I have the best team out here, and we have great partners. It’s a team effort!” Speed and Foust entered the weekend with only 30 points separating them, while Loenbro Motorsports’ Steve Arpin remained alive in the championship hunt as well. Foust pared down the lead to 24 with a perfect trio of heats, setting up a showdown in the final with both drivers on the front row, while Arpin was mathematically eliminated in the early stages of the event. Foust took the lead at the start of the final, with Patrik Sandell and Cabot Bigham getting past Speed to take second and third behind him. Speed would climb back to second in the late stages of the final, while Sandell hung on for third. Speed’s runner-up finish would enable him to secure the championship over Foust by an 826-807 margin.
“We snuck qualifying away from Scott, and then there was a little glimmer of hope in the heats,” Foust said after the victory. “Scott had a little bit of trouble, and coming into the final we had a chance to win if Scott was worse than eighth. It’s a big gap, but I was feeling it, and the whole team was hungry for that. But I’m so happy for our team—we had a tough Atlantic City, but since then we’ve won everything we’ve driven up to the line to do, and that’s not easy in this group. Hopefully we’re going to carry some of that for next year!” In GRC Lites, DirtFish Motorsports’ Conner Martell made up for missing the previous round in Seattle with a clean sweep of qualifying and heats and his third victory of the season. Dreyer & Reinbold Racing’s Alex Keyes, who won this event last year, took second, with fellow DRR driver Christian Brooks completing the podium. Olsbergs MSE X Forces’ Cyril Raymond failed to finish the final, but had already locked up the championship with a race remaining. Full Supercar results from Red Bull Global Rallycross Los Angeles are as follows:
Tanner Foust, #34 Volkswagen Andretti Rallycross
Scott Speed, #41 Volkswagen Andretti Rallycross
Patrik Sandell, #18 Subaru Rally Team USA
Steve Arpin, #00 Loenbro Motorsports
Cabot Bigham, #2 Bryan Herta Rallysport
Mitchell deJong, #24 Honda Red Bull Olsbergs MSE
Sebastian Eriksson, #93 Honda Red Bull Olsbergs MSE
Austin Dyne, #14 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Chris Atkinson, #55 Subaru Rally Team USA
Oliver Eriksson, #16 Honda Red Bull Olsbergs MSE
Final 2017 Supercar championship standings are as follows:
Scott Speed, 826 points
Tanner Foust, 807
Steve Arpin, 743
Sebastian Eriksson, 651
Mitchell deJong, 640
Oliver Eriksson, 601
Chris Atkinson, 585
Patrik Sandell, 582
Austin Dyne, 562
Cabot Bigham, 473
Austin Cindric, 102
The GRC Lites finals from Los Angeles will air on Thursday, October 19 at 4:30PM ET on the NBC Sports Network. Further announcements about the 2018 Red Bull Global Rallycross season will be made in the coming weeks.