Volkswagen RX Sweden team announces driver line-up while Karlsson takes sabbatical

Volkswagen Sweden announced the biggest news of the rallycross week in Stockholm on Friday, where it revealed that the Kristoffersson Motorsport and Marklund Motorsport FIA World Rallycross Championship teams would join to form Volkswagen RX Sweden, and run a pair of Volkswagen Polo Supercars for Johan Kristoffersson and Anton Marklund in 2016.

The team, which is the first to officially announce it’s 2016 plans, will be led by team principle Jan Marklund and general manager Tommy Kristoffersson, while Austrian Michael Schneider will act as team manager and take care of the day-to-day and on event running of the team.

Anton Marklund moves back to the team he left at the start of 2015 when he joined Mattias Ekstrom’s EKS squad, which not only leaves a seat to be filled at EKS but also means that Toomas Heikkinen won’t be driving for the VW team next season.

Swedish FIA European Rallycross Championship driver Ramona Karlsson will take a sabbatical from racing in 2016 due to being pregnant. Karlsson was forced to withdraw from the Spanish round of Euro RX due to feeling unwell, caused by the pregnancy, before deciding to skip the last round of the championship. She intends to return to competition in 2017, and has plans to remain involved in motorsport next year.

Finnish driver Heikkinen travelled straight from the final round of the World Rallycross Championship in Argentina to the first round of the Andros Trophy Ice Racing series in Val Thorens. Driving for the Mazda France team, Heikkinen finished seventh and eighth in the opening two Andros Trophy rounds, and is eighth overall in the points heading into round two this weekend in Andorra. French brothers Jean-Baptiste Dubourg and Andrea Dubourg had a better time of things. Jean-Baptiste won on day on and Andrea finished second on day two, the pair currently lie second and third in the points.

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