Racing returns this weekend! World RX adds new Finnish event. Blomqvist’s Esports win.

19 June    Retro Rallycross and British Rallycross Championship announce that Supercar racer Andy Grant will race his Ford Focus in the 4WD and GroupB class of Retro Rallycross this year. Grant will be joined in the category by Ian Flitney who moves up from the Swift Sport series. Flitney will race a Subaru Impreza while Grant will continue with ex-Will Gollop/G-Tech Focus. The class will race over three rounds at two events in 2020, the August Bank Holiday event at Lydden that will begin the delayed Motorsport UK British Rallycross Championship, and then a double-header at Pembrey in October.

19 June    The FIA World Motor Sport Council held its second meeting of the year, with members attending by video conferencing systems. Among its decisions is publication of a new calendar for the FIA World Rallycross Championship which includes a new event in Finland on 29-30 August. The statement erroneously shows the Belgian event, which is schedule to run on 2-4 October, as taking place in September.

19 June    Pailler Competition realigns its plans for 2020 and says that Fabien and Jonathan Pailler will now focus on the French championship. The brothers had originally planned to contest the FIA European Rallycross Championship but with the Covid-19 pandemic changing everything, have now changed plans and will focus on the four-event Rallycross France series. “After long discussions with our partners, we decided to align ourselves with the calendar of four races set up by the FFSA for this 2020 season. The objective does not change for us, and the prospect of winning a 14th national title is enough to strengthen our motivation for the coming season,” said Fabien Pailler.

19 June    The entry list for the RallyX Nordic event at Holjes on 2-5 July is released. Containing more than 90 drivers in four categories, the list includes some ’TBC’ slots. There are 23 Supercars listed – including 2019 RallyX Nordic Champion Robin Larsson, 15 Supercar Lites (RX2) cars, 50 Crosscar/Crosskarts and 10 Crosscar/Crosskarts Junior racers.See the full entry list here.
The event is being live-streamed on a ‘pay-per-view’ basis, subscription details are here.

21 June    The second round of the World RX Esports Series is run on a virtual version of Norway’s Lankebanen at Hell and is won by Tom Blomqvist. Timmy Hansen is the Top Qualifier after the four qualifying rounds and won semi-final one to start the final on pole. Shane van Gisbergen started alongside Hansen, the New Zealander prominent again and the winner of SF2. Joker Lap tactics were decisive; Van Gisbergen completing his in the first lap with Hansen taking the detour in lap two and losing the lead of the race to Blomqvist. Hansen misjudged turn two in lap two after rejoining the main track and lost track position to Van Gisbergen. The separate section for sim racers was won by Killian Dall’olmo for SET Esports, the Frenchman beating his older brother and round one winner Quentin.

22 June    Oliver Solberg is the latest addition to the RallyX Nordic field for the July event at Holjes. The 2018 RallyX Nordic champion is focused on his rally career, but will return to rallycross driving his Citroen DS3, “Everything is a little bit different this year, and we have to be really thankful for people putting together events like this. For sure, this Magic Weekend will be different to the ones we saw before, but the main thing is that we are going to be racing and that is fantastic news,” said Solberg.

23 June    Hedstroms Motorsport will run two of its VW Polo Supercars for Henning Solberg and Pontus Tidemand at the RallyX Nordic event at Holjes. Solberg will race in the Legends section of the event while step-son Tidemand will race in the main Supercar category. “For me personally, it’ll be so much fun going up against the likes of Marcus Gronholm, Andreas Eriksson, Stig-Olov Walfridson and Per Eklund. I can’t believe Per is back again at the age of 74 – that is proper ‘Legend’ status! It’ll also be quite an experience to race Marcus wheel-to-wheel after so many years of following each other’s split times on the rally stages. I can’t wait to get to the track!” Said Solberg.

24 June    World RX and SET Promotion formally announce that the third and fourth rounds of the 2020 FIA World Rallycross Championship will take place at a new event run at Kouvola in Finland. CapitalBox World Rallycross of Finland will form a double-header weekend of events on 29 and 30 August. To be broadcast live in Finland on YLE, and globally as usual on World RX broadcasters, the events will see World RX racers complete a complete a round of the championship on each day. The event will be held behind closed doors and without spectators. “I’m delighted that we can add events in Finland. Everything from the initial idea, to getting a contract, has taken just a few weeks and illustrates the best kind of lateral thinking and cooperation from the event organiser, our World RX competitors, the IMG World RX team and the FIA to recognise an opportunity and make the most of it,” said Paul Bellamy, Senior Vice President of motorsports events at IMG. “It’s fantastic that Finnish motor sport expertise is so trusted in the world and we have the opportunity to organise an FIA World Rallycross Championship race in Finland this summer. We have been able to create the package on a tight schedule, thanks to the help of professional people and good partners,” said SET Promotion’s Event Manager, Sami Puumalainen. The events were launched a press conference in Helsinki. Kouvola was the scene for the fourth round of the 2014 FIA World Rallycross Championship which was won by Tanner Foust, the first American driver ever to win a World RX event. The announcement also indicates that the first three weekends of World RX racing in Sweden, Finland and Latvia will all form double-header weekends, leading to a planned 11 event World Championship taking place over eight weekends.

24 June    RallyX Nordic adds Thierry Neuville and Timmy Hansen to the entry list for the Holjes ‘Magic Weekend’ event on 2-5 July. The pair will both race in the Crosscar/Crosskart category where they will race LifeLive chassis built by Neuville’s company. Team Hansen is the Nordic distributor for the FIA-spec Crosscar from LifeLive. The Red Bull Belgium-backed initiative will also field cars at Holjes for teenage talents Kobe Pauwels and Junior racer Thomas Martens.

Calendar    Rallycross racing returns this weekend!

For the first time since 15 March, when the opening CARX event of the year took place, rallycross events will run this weekend. At Sosnova in the Czech Republic an event forming the first round of the Czech Championships will take place and has attracted an entry of 186 cars! In Sweden, Holjes will host the first round of the Swedish National Championship, an event with a more manageable 80 starters.

We are doing the best to keep our calendar of events and where you can watch rallycross in 2020 up to date for you. Postponed and cancelled events remain shown but marked as a record of the carnage wrought on the 2020 schedule by Covid-19.