There will be one more works team in the FIA World Rallycross Championship when the season gets rolling in just over one month’s time in Barcelona.
Team Peugeot Total will enter three cars in this year’s World RX Championship, where they will take over the spot from Team Peugeot-Hansen.
Sebastien Loeb and Timmy Hansen will run with brand newly developed Peugeot 208 WRX cars, while Kevin Hansen will run an updated 2017 version of the same model. The father of Timmy and Kevin, Kenneth Hansen, will still be team boss for the outfit, but they will be upgraded to full works team under Peugeot Sport.
The team aims at winning both the Drivers and Teams Championship, after having watched Volkswagen and Audi run away with the big trophies for the last two seasons. The team was very successful in 2015, where they won the Teams Championship, but they have only claimed two wins in 2016 since then. So the French manufacturer is longing for some trophies.
Graphics: Peugeot Sport
One week ago, it was announced by Sebastien Loeb Racing, that they would enter a brand new developed Peugeot 208 WRX from ONROAK Automotive, with an engine tuned by ORECA. Peugeot Sport hasn’t announced if any of those parts will be in their works cars – but there is at least a visual difference on the front bumper of the two. ORECA tuned the engines for Team Peugeot-Hansen in the previous seasons, but only time will tell. And it’s going to be very interesting to see which one of the works car or the privateer car of the same model, can beat the other.
All three drivers will keep their traditional start numbers – Sebastien Loeb with 9, Timmy Hansen 21 and Kevin Hansen 71. The three drivers will run distinctively different designs on their cars, so it will be easy to spot the difference of the three.
The FIA World Rallycross Championship starts in Barcelona on 14-15 April at Circuit de Catalunya.
