Esports. Gamers & racers. Retro Rallycross.

10 April    Racer-turned-gamer Mitchell DeJong wins the first round of the six-event Subaru iRacing Rallycross series. The esports event uses a virtual version of the Lankebanen at Hell in Norway for the opening round, and will return to the venue for the final event. DeJong led throughout the event and ran out a clear winner in the final. “Qualifying is everything here. It was one of those essential laps. Starting on pole for the first heat meant I had a clean one. I was able to start on pole for the feature because of the pole in qualifying. And that pretty much just sets the tone. So I’m very thankful that everything went as good as I could’ve asked for and stayed out of trouble,” said DeJong. Scott Speed placed second ahead of Conner Martell who was embroiled in a battle with Andreas Bakkerud in the final. The series moves to Daytona on Friday 17 April. Watch round one here.

10 April    Retro Rallycross announces an addition to its four-wheel drive class which will now admit cars built up to 31.12.99. Scheduled to appear at three events of the 2020 Motorsport UK British Rallycross Championship 5 Nations Trophy with the premise of targeting drivers who cannot contest a long championship season, the new group will race with the Group B and four-wheel drive cars already accommodated in the series. Retro Rallycross will continue to feature the two-wheel drive classes for up to 1600cc and over 1600cc cars that were or of a type raced before 31.12.91.

10 April    RX Italia formally postpones rounds two and three of the Italian Rallycross Championship that were scheduled to take place at Melk in Austria on 2-3 May. As before we are doing our best to keep the calendar of 2020 events up to date.

10 April    SET Esports announces that Rasmus Tuominen and Jonne Ollikainen will join its team in 2020. The two Finns both race in real-world rallycross events, Tuominen the RX Academy champion in 2019. Following their first SET Esports outings, Ollikainen (17) and Tuominen (19) will undertake a programme in rallycross and circuit racing in 2020, with the target of qualifying for the iRacing Rallycross World Championship later in the year. The pair join Frenchman Killian Dall’olmo in the SET Esports line-up, the reigning DiRT Rally 2.0 rallycross world series champion currently preparing to race in the inaugural World RX Esports Invitational against real-world FIA World Rallycross Championship stars like Johan Kristoffersson, Timmy Hansen and Andreas Bakkerud on the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit on April 19.

13 April    World RX announces that Lukas Mateja will join the inaugural World RX Esports event this weekend (April 19), when in collaboration with Codemasters and Motorsport Games, the FIA World Rallycross Championship will hold the Catalunya Esports Invitational. Mateja will start as one of three drivers to win through from public qualifying sessions for the event. “I’m very excited and I can’t wait for the race. I was a finalist in Dirt Rally 2.0 World Series both for rally and RX where I finished P4 and P5, which was big disappointment for me, but it’s hard to say how competitive I can he in this race,” said the 22-year-old Czech.

14 April    As World RX drivers continue to hone their Esports skills, some of them having to learn from scratch, Timmy Hansen goes online to practice in public and opens himself up to racing all comers… Kevin Hansen, meanwhile, has thrown himself all-in to the Esports thing and took place in the All-Star Invitational run the The Race.