Seven days in rallycross, April 24

The FIA World Rallycross Championship season was officially launched at Franciacorta in Italy where the teams and drivers that will take part in the first ever World championship for rallycross were revealed. Double FIA European champion Timur Timerzyanov was confirmed as a member of the new Team Peugeot-Hansen where he joins Timmy Hansen. The pair will drive new Peugeot 208 Supercars, but will start the season with few if any testing miles completed as the cars are not yet complete and were absent from the launch event.

The World RX field comprises six two-car teams and three individual entries. Derek Tohill, Jos Jansen and Bohdan Ludwiczak are the individual entrants, Team Peugeot-Hansen joined by Albatec Racing, Olsbergs MSE, Monster Energy World RX, PS 110% and Marklund Motorsport in the new Teams championship.

The event also provided the entry list for the first round of the World Championship, which take place at Montalegre in Portugal on May 3-4, 19 Supercars feature in the 43-car field. Additionally the event will include a ten-car field for the first RX Lites Cup event.

Details of television coverage for the 2014 season was also announced by championship promoter IMG. Greatly expanded coverage in 2014 will deliver the championship to more than 100 countries with a combined household reach of more than 816 million homes. At lest 25 broadcaster around the world will show the the Championship’s two-hour programme live, or ‘as live’.

The launch event was also used to officially reveal the new EKS team created by Mattias Ekstrom. The new squad will use new Audi S1s in a campaign that is focused on a European Rallycross Championship programme for Pontus Tidemand, Ekstrom and others joining the FIA Junior World Rally Champion in the second car at selected events. The season is being used to develop the new team which plans to join the World Championship in 2015. Full plans for EKS will be revealed in the lead-up to the first round of the European Rallycross Championship for Supercars at Lydden on May 24-25.

Also present in Franciacorta was a new two-car team of Super1600 Renault Clios from the Sport Club Maggiorra which will enter the cars to be shared by four different drivers, in a short season of selected FIA events this year.

Marklund Motorsport VW Polo drivers Anton Marklund and Tomas Heikkinen will both take part in the X Games at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas on June 5-8.

The opening round of the CEZ championship, which also formed the first round of the Hungarian national series, took place on the Rabocsiring on Easter Monday. Zoltan Harsanyi (Mitsubishi Lancer) was the winner of the event, leading home compatriot Peter Kotan (Escort) and defending champion, Austrian Alois Holler (Focus). Hungarian “Luigi” won Super1600 in his Skoda Fabia and Roman Castoral was best of the Supernational field in his front-drive Astra.

Former Belgian Rallycross Champion Jochen Coox is set to embark upon a season in the FIA European Rallycross Championship and has entered his VW Scirocco for the first event at Lydden at the end of May.

Lukas Walfridson, meanwhile, is set to begin the warm-up for his first season in rallycross by driving his Helmia Renault Clio in the first round of the German Rallycross Championship at the Estering this weekend. Walfridson is one of four Supercars in the entry for the event which is also being used as a test run for Super1600 European championship front runners Sergey Zagumennov and Nikita Misyulya. The German event also includes a round of the Belgian Rallycross Championship which has already appeared in Britain this year.

At the start of the week Monster Energy released a new video that cross promotes the Speedway GP and FIA World Rallycross Championships, for both of which it is the presenting sponsor. Simple scenario, let SGP World Champion Tai Woffinden and Monster Energy World RX driver Liam Doran loose with their weapons of choice on a speedway track. See how they got below.

[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LslkdxViw38&list=UUg1uYO329KcAEN-PQdoQMKQ[/tube]

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