Category: World RX

There will be some minor but important adjustments to the technical regulations, when the new FIA World Rallycross Championship season starts on 14-16 April in Barcelona. The FIA, the teams competing in World RX, and IMG, who is the commercial rights holders for the series, have decided to implement some changes in the 2018 rules, with the aim to stop the costs skyrocketing. Since the series started in 2014, the costs has just got bigger and bigger, and with the works involvement from Volkswagen, Peugeot, Ford and Audi, several millions…

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The season finale in the FIA World Rallycross Championship was run near Cape Town in South Africa. It was already clear that Johan Kristoffersson would be crowned World Champion, just like the PSRX Volkswagen Sweden had already won the Teams Championship. The fight for second was still on, and Petter Solberg flew to South Africa with a one point lead over the 2016 Champion, Mattias Ekström. Sebastien Loeb was in P4 but could neither be caught nor catch the guys ahead. So it was going to be a Norwegian/Swedish duel.…

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The FIA World Rallycross Championship will keep the stability with their 2018 calendar, while also adding a bit of newness too. BSI, the organizers behind the Rallycross series, announced early this year that Silverstone would take over the British round of the Championship, while recent news revealed COTA in USA towards the end of the season. With two new events in the calendar, some events had to go, since the series still consist of 12 Rounds. The departure of Lydden Hill was already announced as part of the Silverstone announcement.…

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Peugeot Sport will increase their involvement in the FIA World Rallycross Championship in 2018, while Ford has announced to step down with their Hoonigan Racing Division. Peugeot currently participate in WorldRX with Team Peugeot-Hansen and will start their 5th season in 2018. Sebastien Loeb will remain a part of the team, while Peugeot Sport doesn’t specify exactly was the extra involvement means. It could just be more money for the three cars that the team currently enters, or it could be entering more cars. Team Peugeot-Hansen was a 4-car team…

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It was a Sunday with Audi dominance when Round 11 of this years FIA World Rallycross Championship was run at Estering, south of Hamburg in Germany. Petter Solberg was a very surprising entrant, since he had an operation for his broken collarbone earlier the same week. Solberg competed in the weekend with a special harness to protect the shoulder. The PSRX Volkswagen Team Sweden had nominated guest driver Dieter Depping as the other point scoring driver for the team alongside the already crowned World Champion Johan Kristoffersson. It wasn’t a…

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There was plenty of close racing and drama when Round 10 of this years FIA World Rallycross Championship was run in Riga in Latvia. Timo Scheider had a fire on his car in Qualifying heat 1. He still drove the car over the finishing line, before he leaped out of the car. Fortunately the fire was quickly put out and the mechanics at MJP Racing Team Austria then became busy in repairing the Ford Fiesta ST. The car was ready for Sunday, but the points missed in Q2 meant that…

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After a dry Saturday, the weather changed completely for Sunday, with rain falling over the French track in Loheac, at the 9th Round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship. Qualifying Heat 1 and 2 happened without major incidents on Saturday, but the Sunday rain, gave plenty more action on the circuit. The most action in Qualifying Heat 3 was when Petter Solberg stalled on the grid and guest driver for EKS, the DTM driver Nico Müller, was turned around in turn one by Kevin Hansen. Müller didn’t collect enough points…

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Nico Müller will make a guest appearance in the FIA World Rallycross Championship, when Round 9 will be run on the Loheac track in France. The EKS team will enter a fourth car for that weekend, and that will give Müller his debut in the rallycross sport. Müller was testing an Audi S1 for the EKS team earlier this year, when the team tested at Circuit de Catalunya in Spain, right after the opening round of the Championship. The three usual drivers will be in the other three cars –…

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Round 8 of the FIA World Rallycross Championship was held in Canadian Trois-Rivieres, where 20 WorldRX drivers were starting. Due to a lot of rain on Friday, it wasn’t possible to have any practice ahead of the qualification heats, but the track had dried up for the Saturday racing. Reinis Nitiss broke the prop shaft in Qualification heat 1, which gave the mechanics a lot of work ahead of Q2, but they made it. Andreas Bakkerud had a spin in Q2 and ended up in the middle of the track.…

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Formula 1 has Monaco, Indycar has Indianapolis, Sportscars has Le Mans – Rallycross has Höljes. That was how the TV broadcast started from Swedish Höljes – and it is a real party in the middle of a Swedish forest. It was a weekend full of sun from start to finish, which gave the drivers perfect conditions to battle at this classic track. Defending World Champion and current Championship second place Mattias Ekström weren’t in Höljes due to a DTM date clash, and Audi Sport had chosen the Swede to sit…

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There was excitement all the way when Round 6 of the FIA World Rallycross Championship was held in Norwegian Hell. Saturday was a rainy day, which meant that they could save the dry tires for Sunday. Kevin Eriksson got a big hit in Qualifying heat 1 Saturday, which sent him backwards into the joker lap against his own liking. He was flipped the whole way around, so he was parked against driving direction, but could still complete the race. The slick asphalt due to the rain added to the slide,…

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Petter Solberg had the last laugh in the last Rallycross World Championship round at Lydden Hill. After 50 years with international Rallycross on this track, the people behind the series had decided to move it to Silverstone from next year. Lydden Hill is the track where Rallycross was born, so it was a tough goodbye for many of the drivers. If they want to drive on the track in the future, they would have to do it with some of the other classes. Back to the track, there were a…

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Johan Kristoffersson won a highly dramatic finale in Belgian Mettet, at the 4th round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship. Kevin Hansen’s Sunday was quickly over, when he had a dramatic roll in Qualifying heat 3, where he lost the rear end of his car and clipped a tire barrier that flipped the car twice, before it was ending up on all 4 wheels again. The car was so damaged that he couldn’t continue, even though he was one of the fastest this weekend. Mattias Ekström got a puncture in…

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It was three in a row for Mattias Ekström when Round 3 of the FIA World Rallycross Championship was run at Hockenheim. Johan Kristoffersson took second place, followed by Timmy Hansen. While the 4 qualifying heats on Saturday were run on a dry track, it was completely different on the Sunday. Light rain made the track extremely slippery, and that resulted in a crash for Kevin Hansen in the warm up even BEFORE the semifinal. The mechanics were quick to repair the car, but following a collision with Reinis Nitiss…

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Like the first round, Mattias Ekström also won the second round of FIA World Rallycross Championship, when they raced at the Montalegre track in Portugal. The Swede extended his lead in the World Championship standings, when the former number 2, Timo Scheider, had a bad weekend and only scored two points. He missed the semifinals by just one position in qualifying race 4. But that’s how it goes in Rallycross – there are close fights all around the fields. Sebastien Loeb finished second in the final, ahead of the new…

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It was the day of the tarmac racing drivers when the first round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship was run at Spanish Circuit De Catalunya. The defending World Champion Mattias Ekström beat all the rivals in the finale, but it wasn’t without a great battle from his former DTM teammate Timo Scheider. The podium was completed with another driver flirting with the tarmac sport, in the shape of a part of Danish DTC season in Denmark through 2016, Andreas Bakkerud. Scheider was on top of the table before the…

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Brit Guy Wilks is ready for his first full FIA World Rallycross Championship season. He has previously participated in five rounds of the championship, but now the former WRC driver wants to do all 12 rounds of year. He has bought the Volkswagen Polo RX Supercar that Johan Kristoffersson drove to second position in the World Championship in 2016, and he will participate with his own team.   “Elsa”, as Kristoffersson liked to call his car, is a car that Volkswagen RX Sweden doesn’t need any more, since they will…

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The STARD team enters the FIA World Rallycross Championship. Latvian Janis Baumanis and Russian Timur Timerzyanov will be driving for the team, led by Manfred Stohl. STARD has developed the FIA Fiesta RXS Supercars that World RX Team Austria utilized so far, and it was through that team that the three guys got to know each other. Stohl was driving for the team himself, and before that he was a WRC driver for many years. Baumanis has done two season in FIA World Rallycross Championship, where he reached several top…

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Team EKS has already announced their two cars, but today they came with a surprise addition as they added another car to the line-up. Reinis Nitiss will be piloting the third Audi S1 EKS RX for the team, which is heavily supported by Audi SPort. Nitiss won the European Championship in the S1600 category in 2013 and has since then driven in the FIA World Rallycross Championship. So far he’s primarily driven a Ford Fiesta ST for the Olsbergs MSE team, but half a season in 2016 he switched it…

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