At the end of a grueling weekend in the Austrian round of the FIA European Rallycross Championship, Monster Energy athlete Liam Doran extended his points lead at the head of the series.

Both driver and team learned vital lessons about the new Citroën DS3 Supercar which is in only its third event.

“It’s the result that counts, I’m leading the championship and I’m the only driver who has been in the A final in all of the three events so far this year, but just getting to the end of this event has been tough and I hope we can have a smoother run soon,” said Doran who had to drive around engine problems all weekend.

In the first dry – and the warmest – event of the year so far, Doran’s car experienced excessive intercooler temperatures.

“There are actually a few small problems and together they are making it very difficult,” said Doran.

“The intercooler is running too hot, about double what it should be and that’s creating other difficulties. Usually you’d just change the engine and move on but the rules changed this year and there’s an eight place penalty for changing an engine during an event. There’s no way back from that so we had to keep working, trying to make things better and hope we got to the end of the event. I was really lucky to finish the third heat because there was a spark plug problem, but it kept going just long enough and I actually got my best finish of the weekend before the engine stopped after the finish line.”

Doran’s refusal to give up in the third heat when the engine sounded as though it might explode at any moment, brought an amazing second fastest time, crucially moving him up from seventh to fifth in the qualifying order, meaning he had an A final grid slot.

“I really didn’t expect that, when the engine started misfiring I just thought ‘I’m not going to give in’ and did everything just to get to the end, second fastest was some kind of miracle,” said Doran who then gained one position in the A final to end the event in fourth place.

“There was a chance to be third in the final but I lost that because there were yellow flags on one corner [where another car had gone off the course]. I had a chance to make a pass there but I backed off, as you should, and let it go, not everyone was that fair but the officials decided not to take any action.

“Considering all the problems we had this weekend fourth is a great result and there’s a lot we can do this week to improve the car and change the engine for the Hungarian round next weekend at Nyirad so I’m confident we can keep delivering results.”

Current Championship standings

Liam Doran (GB) 37pts,

Alexander Hvaal (N) 34 pts,

Timue Tmerzyanov (RUS) 33pts,

Kevin Procter (GB) 27pts,

Davy Jeanney (F) 25pts,

Tanner Foust (USA) 24pts,

Michael De Keersmaecker (B) 23pts,

Guttorm Lindefjell (N) 18pts,

Mats Lysen (N) 17pts,

Marc Laboulle (F) 17pts

Remaining 2012 FIA European Rallycross Championship dates

June 2-3, Hungary

June 23-24, Norway

June 30-July 1, Sweden

August 4-5, Belgium

August 11-12, Holland

September 22-23, Finland