Kaspars Liepiņš

Kaspars Liepiņš (born 11 October 1984 in Cēsis) is a Latvian sidecarcross rider and the 2009 World Champion, won as the passenger of the Belgian Joris Hendrickx.

As Hendrickx's passenger he is also a three-time Belgian national sidecarcross champion, having won titles in 2008, 2009 and 2010, and the 2013 French and 2015 German champion.

Sidecarcross results Kaspars Liepiņš took part in sidecarcross races in the national Latvian championship from 2003, at first as passenger for U. Zvaigznītis, and, from 2004, on the side of Kārlis Leimanis.

Kaspars Liepiņš made his world championship debut on 9 April 2007, in the first race of the season, alongside fellow Latvian Kārlis Leimanis. In their first race, they finished only 26th but managed to win three points in race two of the event, the Dutch GP at Oldebroek. The duo took part in the first four of eight events that season, with a sixteenth place their best result and an overall finish of 33rd.

The following season, Liepiņš teamed up with Joris Hendrickx and earned considerably more success, coming fourth overall A win and a second place in the last event earned the Belgian / Latvian combination the world title, with Joris Hendrickx becoming only the second Belgian to do so, after Sven Verbrugge, and the first Belgian driver to record this achievement. Kaspars Liepiņš, in turn, is the fourth Latvian with world championship honours in the sport.

The Belgian-Latvian combination Hendrickx-Liepiņš suffered a season-ending injury at the qualifying of the German Grand Prix in July 2011, being able to compete in the race but requiring surgery afterwards. Consequently, the team only finished ninth in the overall standings at the end of the season.

The team was able to complete the 2012 season without injury and finished fourth in the world championship, 83 points behind Daniël Willemsen who won his tenth title. In November 2012, Joris Hendrickx retired from the sport, initially leaving Liepiņš to look for a new team. Despite his announced retirement, Hendrickx still took part in non-GP sidecarcross races together with Liepiņš, the pair winning the event in Muri, Switzerland in 2013. Hendrickx also declared that he would start at the Belgian and French GP's in 2013, but did not compete in either event. Instead, Hendrickx and Liepiņš raced the French national championship which they won.

In the 2014 season he competed in only a few selected races of the French championship, still as passenger of Hendrickx, but still as a top contender. The following season the pair won the German championship.

Season by season Kaspars Liepiņš sidecarcross world championship statistics: Season Driver Equipment Position Points Races Wins Second Third2007 Kārlis Leimanis KTM-AYR33178———2008 Joris Hendrickx KTM-AYR439424—222009 Joris HendrickxKTM-VMC 14832627102010 Joris HendrickxKTM-VMC 25472861222011 Joris HendrickxKTM-VMC9315162622012 Joris HendrickxKTM-VMC436922137 Overall 2007 - 20122,131124113023 Source: Passengers in italics.

Honours

World Championship Champions: (1) 2009 Runners-up: (1) 2010

Belgium Champions: (3) 2008, 2009, 2010

France Champions: (1) 2013

Germany Champions: (1) 2015