Liam Doran kept in the hunt for the European Rallycross Championship after the fifth round of the ten-race series in Norway.

Second place at the ‘Rallycross in Hell’ event near Trondheim, left Monster Energy athlete Doran confident for his chances in the second half of the season and for this weekend’s X Games in Los  Angeles.

“I had to do something here,” said Doran, “Timerzyanov [the championship leader] has set the  standard and I don’t have any excuses because we have basically the same chassis but he found  a better setup faster than us. We changed the car again coming here and it was better, but in the  third qualifying heat I could not possibly have gone any faster and I couldn’t keep up with him so  we took a gamble for the final and changed the suspension settings back to how we had them in  the Hungarian event, but left the differentials with the new settings.

“It was a risk, but it paid off because the car was better than it’s ever been and we got the best result we’ve had this year.”

The crash that ended his run in the Hungarian event three weeks ago created a huge amount of  work to repair the car and get it back on the track, so the progress made in Norway was an extra  boost.

“Obviously I’m happy that we’re progressing but this is a great result for the team because they worked hard to get the car here and then to change the setup and make it work.  What we’ve got to do now is test and work at the car again because I want to win the Belgian race  in August. That’s the next European event for me and even if I don’t like the track very much, I  have been on pole there the last two years and this time I want to win it.

“We’ve got to make sure we get the car together and go win some events in the second half of the  championship,” said Doran.

Before that, Doran will revert to his US-based Citroën C4 Supercar to take part in the X Games  where he won a Gold Medal last year.

Result of A final (six laps) Supercar

1 Tanner Foust (USA) 3m25.990s;

2 Liam Doran (GB) +2.3s;

3 Timur Timerzyanov (RUS) + 2.6s;

4 Stig-Olov Walfridson (S) +0.3s;

5 Mats Lysen (N)+0.6s;

6 Alexander Hvaal (N) + 15.7s.

Championship standings after 5 rounds

1 Timerzyanov 68;

2 Foust 61;

3 Hvaal 58;

4 Doran 56;

5 Lysen 44;

6 Davy Jeanney 42.

Remaining 2012 FIA European Rallycross Championship dates

June 30-July 1, Sweden

August 4-5, Belgium

August 11-12, Holland

September 22-23, Finland

September 29-30, Germany