Pailler’s Esports win. Finnish series cancelled. 2020 restarts in Sweden and Czech Republic.

26 June    Latvian teenager Roberts Vitols will return to the British Rallycross Championship this year, moving up from the Junior series to race a Super1600 Peugeot 206. The 17-year-old was third in the Junior Championship in 2019 and plans to base his car in the UK to race in the 5 Nations BRX which will now begin at Lydden at the end of August.

28 June    Jonathan Pailler takes a debut victory in the third round of the World RX Esports Series which was run on a virtual version of Sweden’s Holjes track. Three different drivers took a fastest time in qualifying; Norway’s Sivert Svardal, Sweden’s Timmy Hansen and Great Britain’s Tom Blomqvist, round two winner Blomqvist fastest in Q3 and Q4 to take the TQ (top qualifier) position for the semi-finals. Pailler made it to the five-car final as the third place finisher in semi-final one and then grabbed the lead of became a riotous final to break away and take a clear win. “This first World RX Esports race was a big learning curve for me to learn about the car characteristics, compared to what Fabien and I usually race online. I started driving on Thursday evening with the Dall’olmo brothers and it really wasn’t easy but lap after lap I managed to get closer to their times. I focused on driving clean and making no mistakes and it paid off. I really didn’t expect to win but it’s a great surprise, especially given the level,” said Pailler. Killian Dll’olmo won the sim-racer element of the event, the DiRT World Champion taking his second victory of the series. The four-event series concludes in Cape Town on 12 July.

27-28 July    The Swedish National championship, SM Rallycross, gets under way at Holjes with a double-header weekend which means that Saturday’s event is the first rallycross to be run since the Covid-19 lockdown curtailed the season after 15 March. The Supernational class is poorly supported with just four starters and is won by Per-Erik Blomkvist (Volvo S40) who qualifies third behind Andreas Israelsson and Kim Andersson. Israelsson strikes back on Sunday to win the final despite having non-finished in both the first and third qualifiers. In the 2400 class home racer Per Berglund (Volvo BMW M3) wins on Saturday but slips to third on Sunday when Simon C Claesson (Volvo S40) wins. Marius Tangen (Saab 900) is best of the 2150 field on Saturday but second on Sunday when Anton Eriksson Therus (BMW E36) grabs the win. Filip Martinsson (BMW E36) is best of the 18-strong Junior JSM field on Saturday while Oskar Hellstrom (BMW E30) improves from fifth on Saturday to win on Sunday. Third on Saturday and fifth on Sunday puts Klara Andersson ahead in the points, the teenager also having raced in the sim-racer category of the World RX Esports event on Sunday.

28 July    The Czech Championship opener at Sosnova is won by Ales Fucik (VW Polo) who starts from pole in the final having recorded fastest times in the first and third qualifiers. Austrian veteran Alois Holler (Ford Fiesta) is fastest in the second qualifier and then second to Fucik in the final where Lukas Marek (VW Golf) completes the top three finishers. The event also counted towards the Slovakian Rallycross Championship and was run over Saturday and Sunday and caterered for ten classes. Saturday’s racing was abandoned after thunder storms swept the venue. Among the winners were Thomas Marchal (Skoda Rapird) in Historic up to 1600cc, Jiri Matejka (Skoda Felicia) in Historic over 1600cc and Pavel Koutny (Mitsubishi Lancer) Historic 4×4. Jan Cerny (Skoda Citigo) won the Super1600 class and Petr Dolezal (Honda) was best of the kartcross field.

30 June    The Finnish ASN, the AKK, decides to cancel the Finnish Rallycross Championship, Rallycross SM, for 2020. The lower level national series has also been cancelled. The Finnish season usually runs May to September and as it will not be possible to start before 31 July, running the series this year could not be justified. The AKK based its decision on the results of a competitor and organiser survey. The move does not mean that there will be no rallycross in Finland this year, just that any events run will not form part of a championship. 

Calendar    There’s more racing this weekend, RallyX Nordic’s much-hyped Holjes ‘Magic Weekend’ starts tomorrow morning (2 July) and will extensively broadcast on a pay-per-view livestream that you can subscribe to here.

In Latvia the LVRX series, Baltic Cup and NEZ series commence at Bikernieki in Riga. Saturday is a non-spectator day because it coincides with the national day of remembrance for victims of the second world war genocide, but Sunday will admit up to 1000 spectators by advanced ticket sale only.

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.