With two of the ten races in the FIA European Rallycross Championship complete Monster Energy athlete Liam Doran has snatched a share of the points lead in the title race.

Doran sits level with round one winner Tanner Foust at the top of the championship rankings.

Run at the Circuit d l’Ouest Parisien at Dreux, the French round of the series was a gruelling two-day affair made harder by persistent rain and the home track advantage held by French racers. Placed eighth at the end of the weekend, Doran had mixed feelings despite going ahead in the championship.

“I was the only one of the European championship racers to get it together here so I am disappointed to not finish the final,” said Doran who started the A final from fourth on the grid but was out of the race with broken steering in the first lap.

“I got too good a start to stay out of trouble in the first corner and not quite good enough to take the lead, I braked early but got boxed-in, there was some pushing in the pack and the steering broke. You work hard to get these results but these things happen, the only good thing about it is that over the first two rounds I have been the best of the championship racers so I’m leading the points but I am disappointed because I got a few points for eighth place when I’m sure I could have won.”

Only the second event for the new Monster Energy Citroën DS3, Doran and his team continued the process of fine tuning its car and, as a result of the retirement in the A final will now investigate strengthening the steering arms.

“My expectations are too high really, we’ll look at the strength of the steering components and learn from that but generally the car was great here, the reliability has been 100% and we’ve got a good setup and I’m looking forward to the next one because I was the only one to step up and challenge the French guys and in championship terms we are in good shape. I’m not down about the car or the team, everyone worked their nuts off to get me there and I couldn’t finish the job off, but that’s racing, stuff happens.”

With a four week break before the next round of the championship in Austria, Doran will continue development work with the new car and plans further testing.

“The car is still new so we’re going to do some more testing and keep working hard to learn all we can about it.”